Mosaddegh
Mosaddegh (Musaddiq) (Mohammed Mosaddiq) (Muhammad Mosaddeq) (Mohammed Mossadegh) (Mohammad Mosaddegh) (Mossadegh) (Mosaddeq) (Mossadeq) (May 19, 1882 – March 5, 1967). Iranian nationalist prime minister (1951-1953). Mosaddegh nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and was later ousted in a coup engineered by the shah, the British and the United States Central Intelligence Agency (the CIA). Mossadegh was an Iranian political leader who was best known for his role, during his tenure as prime minister, in the oil nationalization crisis of 1951-1953. Mossadegh also led the National Front (Jebbe-ye Melli), a coalition of secular and religious groups that was one of the most important forces opposing the Pahlavi monarchy.
Born into a wealthy, landed family, Mossadegh was educated at the Ecole des Sciences Politiques in Paris and at the Neuchatel University in Switzerland. He held various government positions from an early age, serving as a member of the Iranian Majlis (parliament) from 1915 to 1917, again from 1925 to 1928, and finally from 1944 to 1953. Under the last of the Qajar monarchs, Mossadegh served as governor-general of the province of Fars (1920-1921), as minister of justice (1921), as governor-general of Azerbaijan (1922-1923), and as foreign minister (1924).
Mossadegh’s support for constitutionalism and parliamentary democracy, coupled with his opposition to Reza Shah’s increasing autocracy, led to his arrest in the late 1930s and temporary retirement from political life. He re-entered the political arena in 1941 immediately following the forced abdication and exile of Reza Shah by the British.
It was in this period, from 1941 to 1943, that Mossadegh arose as the leader and spokesman for the secular nationalist faction of the Majlis that was to become the National Front. Elected to the fourteenth Majlis in 1943, Mosssadegh spoke out strongly in opposition to continued foreign influence in Iran’s government and economy, most specifically in the area of the already crucial oil industry.
Mossadegh made frequent, sometimes impassioned speeches in the Majlis concerning the disadvantageous concessions Iran had often made to foreign interests. He proposed a bill, passed in December 1944, prohibiting any minister from negotiating oil concessions to a foreign party without the approval of the Majlis. Three years later, he led the successful opposition to a proposed joint Soviet-Iranian venture to search for oil in northern Iran. Simultaneously, Mossadegh challenged the terms of the current agreement with the British in their oil concession in the south; this move quickly developed into a call for complete nationalization of Iran’s oil industry.
From 1947 to 1949 Iran’s government engaged in negotiations for new terms for the oil concession granted to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC). These negotiations ended in a highly unpopular compromise agreement that was accepted by the government but rejected by the Majlis. Mossadegh and the National Front led the opposition to the oil agreement, and the Majlis elections of 1950, in which the National Front candidates gained a large number of new seats, reflected the growing popular support for the anti-British, nationalist position long held by Mossadegh.
With his election as chairmen of the oil commission of the Majlis, Mossadegh immediately reiterated the call for nationalization of the oil industry. In 1951, after the assassination of Ali Razmara and a brief interim government led by Husain Ala, Mossadegh was elected prime minister. Under his premiership, Iran formally announced the nationalization of the oil industry.
The ensuing dispute between Iran and Great Britain led to a worldwid boycott of purchases of Iranian oil, with the United States initially supporting , then actively opposing, Iran’s position. Great Britain interfered with Iran’s foreign trade and banking and put diplomatic pressure on its allies to do the same. The United States, responding to repeated British requests, refused to lend Iran money until the oil dispute was resolved. At the same time, the Americans made their own efforts to enforce the international oil boycott. Consequently, from 1951 to 1953, Iran experienced a severe economic decline, with only small sales of oil to Japan and Italy, which resisted pressure to join the boycott. The overwhelming importance of oil revenues to Iran’s economy, together with the successful efforts of Great Britain and the United States to block foreign loans or new markets for Iran’s oil, presented insurmountable stumbling blocks to Mossadegh’s political and economic policies.
During his tenure, and in the midst of the oil crisis, Mossadegh attempted to reduce Iran’s dependence on oil revenues, to reform the domestic tax and revenue structures, and to control government spending. He also sought a policy of nonalignment in foreign affairs, hoping to balance off the Soviet Union and the Western powers.
Within Iran, Mossadegh enjoyed widespread support throughout most of 1952. Early in 1953, however, he was faced with a deepening economic crisis and the defection from the National Front of Husain Makki, Musaffar Baghai, and the religious faction led by Ayatollah Kashani. Iran’s major communist party, the Tudeh, initially suported then later attacked Mossadegh’s leadership. Mossadegh, in turn, was cautious about accepting support from the Tudeh Party, in part because of its pro-Soviet stance. In addition, conflicts with the shah had led to a series of demonstrations in support of Mossadegh following arrests of various government officials on charges of treason and conspiracy.
Mossadegh’s most serious internal opposition stemmed from growing disputes within the National Front. Once he had consolidated control of the government, after pressures that had held the National Front together were relaxed, some religious and leftist groups found themselves at odds with Mossadegh’s policies. A number of social, economic, and political reforms that Mossadegh wished to implement alienated one group or another, and a growing sense of impatience and then alarm was expressed by some over Mossadegh’s attempts at gaining control of the army, something he felt he had to have to ensure the stability of his government.
By the summer of 1953, the British and American governments had initiated plans for the covert overthrow of Mossadegh. British Intelligence and the United States Central Intelligence Agency had agreed to support the shah and opposition groups within Iran in carrying out a coup. The decision was made to replace Mossadegh with General Fazlollah Zahedi, one of those arrested in February on charges of plotting to overthrow the government. The shah and a group of military officers were informed of these plans, and they were put into effect in August.
On August 19, 1953, a group of tanks led by General Zahedi moved through Tehran and surrounded Mossadegh’s residence. At the same time, hired strongmen from the bazaar commenced a noisy demonstration in support of the shah, while supporters of Ayatollah Kashani joined in to add to the confusion. Resistance to the coup was minimal, and in a matter of hours both Mossadegh and his top leaders were arrested and the shah was flying back to Iran. Several months later Mossadegh was put on trial for treason. Mossadegh spent three years in prison and then was confined to his village, in political isolation, until his death in 1967 in Ahmadabad.
Mossadegh remains a figure of tremendous stature in the history of modern Iran. As an individual, he had a reputation for honesty, integrity, and sincerity. He strongly opposed foreign, especially British and, later, American, influence in Iran at a time when most Iranians perceived many of their economic and political hardships as originating from such influence. He was an eloquent, impassioned orator, and his speeches are still widely read in Iran.
Mohammad Mosaddegh see Mosaddegh
Mohammad Mossadegh see Mosaddegh
Mohammad Musaddiq see Mosaddegh
Musaddiq, Mohammad see Mosaddegh
Mossadegh, Mohammad see Mosaddegh
Mossadegh, Mohammed see Mosaddegh
Mosaddegh (Musaddiq) (Mohammed Mosaddiq) (Muhammad Mosaddeq) (Mohammed Mossadegh) (Mohammad Mosaddegh) (Mossadegh) (Mosaddeq) (Mossadeq) (May 19, 1882 – March 5, 1967). Iranian nationalist prime minister (1951-1953). Mosaddegh nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and was later ousted in a coup engineered by the shah, the British and the United States Central Intelligence Agency (the CIA). Mossadegh was an Iranian political leader who was best known for his role, during his tenure as prime minister, in the oil nationalization crisis of 1951-1953. Mossadegh also led the National Front (Jebbe-ye Melli), a coalition of secular and religious groups that was one of the most important forces opposing the Pahlavi monarchy.
Born into a wealthy, landed family, Mossadegh was educated at the Ecole des Sciences Politiques in Paris and at the Neuchatel University in Switzerland. He held various government positions from an early age, serving as a member of the Iranian Majlis (parliament) from 1915 to 1917, again from 1925 to 1928, and finally from 1944 to 1953. Under the last of the Qajar monarchs, Mossadegh served as governor-general of the province of Fars (1920-1921), as minister of justice (1921), as governor-general of Azerbaijan (1922-1923), and as foreign minister (1924).
Mossadegh’s support for constitutionalism and parliamentary democracy, coupled with his opposition to Reza Shah’s increasing autocracy, led to his arrest in the late 1930s and temporary retirement from political life. He re-entered the political arena in 1941 immediately following the forced abdication and exile of Reza Shah by the British.
It was in this period, from 1941 to 1943, that Mossadegh arose as the leader and spokesman for the secular nationalist faction of the Majlis that was to become the National Front. Elected to the fourteenth Majlis in 1943, Mosssadegh spoke out strongly in opposition to continued foreign influence in Iran’s government and economy, most specifically in the area of the already crucial oil industry.
Mossadegh made frequent, sometimes impassioned speeches in the Majlis concerning the disadvantageous concessions Iran had often made to foreign interests. He proposed a bill, passed in December 1944, prohibiting any minister from negotiating oil concessions to a foreign party without the approval of the Majlis. Three years later, he led the successful opposition to a proposed joint Soviet-Iranian venture to search for oil in northern Iran. Simultaneously, Mossadegh challenged the terms of the current agreement with the British in their oil concession in the south; this move quickly developed into a call for complete nationalization of Iran’s oil industry.
From 1947 to 1949 Iran’s government engaged in negotiations for new terms for the oil concession granted to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC). These negotiations ended in a highly unpopular compromise agreement that was accepted by the government but rejected by the Majlis. Mossadegh and the National Front led the opposition to the oil agreement, and the Majlis elections of 1950, in which the National Front candidates gained a large number of new seats, reflected the growing popular support for the anti-British, nationalist position long held by Mossadegh.
With his election as chairmen of the oil commission of the Majlis, Mossadegh immediately reiterated the call for nationalization of the oil industry. In 1951, after the assassination of Ali Razmara and a brief interim government led by Husain Ala, Mossadegh was elected prime minister. Under his premiership, Iran formally announced the nationalization of the oil industry.
The ensuing dispute between Iran and Great Britain led to a worldwid boycott of purchases of Iranian oil, with the United States initially supporting , then actively opposing, Iran’s position. Great Britain interfered with Iran’s foreign trade and banking and put diplomatic pressure on its allies to do the same. The United States, responding to repeated British requests, refused to lend Iran money until the oil dispute was resolved. At the same time, the Americans made their own efforts to enforce the international oil boycott. Consequently, from 1951 to 1953, Iran experienced a severe economic decline, with only small sales of oil to Japan and Italy, which resisted pressure to join the boycott. The overwhelming importance of oil revenues to Iran’s economy, together with the successful efforts of Great Britain and the United States to block foreign loans or new markets for Iran’s oil, presented insurmountable stumbling blocks to Mossadegh’s political and economic policies.
During his tenure, and in the midst of the oil crisis, Mossadegh attempted to reduce Iran’s dependence on oil revenues, to reform the domestic tax and revenue structures, and to control government spending. He also sought a policy of nonalignment in foreign affairs, hoping to balance off the Soviet Union and the Western powers.
Within Iran, Mossadegh enjoyed widespread support throughout most of 1952. Early in 1953, however, he was faced with a deepening economic crisis and the defection from the National Front of Husain Makki, Musaffar Baghai, and the religious faction led by Ayatollah Kashani. Iran’s major communist party, the Tudeh, initially suported then later attacked Mossadegh’s leadership. Mossadegh, in turn, was cautious about accepting support from the Tudeh Party, in part because of its pro-Soviet stance. In addition, conflicts with the shah had led to a series of demonstrations in support of Mossadegh following arrests of various government officials on charges of treason and conspiracy.
Mossadegh’s most serious internal opposition stemmed from growing disputes within the National Front. Once he had consolidated control of the government, after pressures that had held the National Front together were relaxed, some religious and leftist groups found themselves at odds with Mossadegh’s policies. A number of social, economic, and political reforms that Mossadegh wished to implement alienated one group or another, and a growing sense of impatience and then alarm was expressed by some over Mossadegh’s attempts at gaining control of the army, something he felt he had to have to ensure the stability of his government.
By the summer of 1953, the British and American governments had initiated plans for the covert overthrow of Mossadegh. British Intelligence and the United States Central Intelligence Agency had agreed to support the shah and opposition groups within Iran in carrying out a coup. The decision was made to replace Mossadegh with General Fazlollah Zahedi, one of those arrested in February on charges of plotting to overthrow the government. The shah and a group of military officers were informed of these plans, and they were put into effect in August.
On August 19, 1953, a group of tanks led by General Zahedi moved through Tehran and surrounded Mossadegh’s residence. At the same time, hired strongmen from the bazaar commenced a noisy demonstration in support of the shah, while supporters of Ayatollah Kashani joined in to add to the confusion. Resistance to the coup was minimal, and in a matter of hours both Mossadegh and his top leaders were arrested and the shah was flying back to Iran. Several months later Mossadegh was put on trial for treason. Mossadegh spent three years in prison and then was confined to his village, in political isolation, until his death in 1967 in Ahmadabad.
Mossadegh remains a figure of tremendous stature in the history of modern Iran. As an individual, he had a reputation for honesty, integrity, and sincerity. He strongly opposed foreign, especially British and, later, American, influence in Iran at a time when most Iranians perceived many of their economic and political hardships as originating from such influence. He was an eloquent, impassioned orator, and his speeches are still widely read in Iran.
Mohammad Mosaddegh see Mosaddegh
Mohammad Mossadegh see Mosaddegh
Mohammad Musaddiq see Mosaddegh
Musaddiq, Mohammad see Mosaddegh
Mossadegh, Mohammad see Mosaddegh
Mossadegh, Mohammed see Mosaddegh
Johaar Mosaval (b. January 8, 1928, Cape Town, South Africa – d. August 16, 2023, Cape Town, South Africa) was a South African ballet dancer who rose to prominence as a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet. He was among the first "persons of color" to perform major roles with an internationally known ballet company during the 1960s.
Johaar Mosaval was born in Cape Town, South Africa. He was the eldest of ten children. His family lived in District Six, a largely Coloured community made up of descendants of former slaves, artisans and merchants, as well as many Cape Malays, descendants of South-East Asians brought to South Africa by the Dutch East India Company during its administration of the Cape Colony. Like the vast majority of Cape Malays, Mosaval's family was Muslim.
When Mosaval was a youth, he was noticed by Dulcie Howes, the doyenne of South African theatrical dance, while he was performing gymnastics. She invited him to attend the University of Cape Town Ballet School. Despite the disapproval of his Muslim parents and the white ("European") community, Mosaval accepted her invitation and began his dance training at the ballet school in 1947. In the classes of Jasmine Honore, Mosaval advanced quickly, as his strong, flexible physique and iron determination to succeed reinforced his natural facility for classical ballet technique.
Apartheid prevented Mosaval from pursuing a dance career in his home country, but in 1950 he was noticed by visiting ballet celebrities Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin, after he was smuggled into Cape Town's Alhambra Theatre for an audition. They arranged for him to receive a scholarship to attend the Sadler's Wells Ballet School in London. Travel to London was paid with money gathered from friends and fundraising by the local Muslim Progressive Society. His parents never paid a cent towards his education in dance, either because they were too poor or because they never approved of it.
In 1956, Mosaval was promoted to soloist in the company, which was soon renamed the Royal Ballet. He became a principal dancer in 1960 and a senior principal in 1965. Mosaval toured extensively with the Royal Ballet, dancing in continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, the Far East, Canada, and the United States as partner to such famous ballerinas as Margot Fonteyn, Svetlana Beriosova, Elaine Fifield, Lynn Seymour, Merle Park, Doreen Wells and fellow South African Nadia Nerina in ballets choreographed by Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan, Ninette de Valois, and two South Africans, David Poole and John Cranko.
Noted for his performances as Jasper the Pot Boy in Pineapple Poll and as Bootface in The Lady and the Fool, both choreographed by Cranko, Mosaval was also acclaimed as the Blue Boy in Les Patineurs and as Puck in The Dream, both choreographed by Ashton, as well as the Blue Bird in The Sleeping Beauty. He developed a global reputation as a brilliant character dancer with impeccable technique.
After twenty-five years with the Royal Ballet, Mosaval retired from performing and returned to Cape Town, settling there permanently in 1976. He made a guest appearance with CAPAB Ballet in the title role of Michel Fokine's Petruskha, thus becoming the first black dancer to perform on the stage of the Nico Malan Opera House. He was also the first black South African to appear on local television. He opened his own ballet school in 1977 and was employed as the first black Inspector of Schools of Ballet under the Administration of Coloured Affairs. When he discovered that he could share his expertise only with a certain segment of the population, he resigned this position. Subsequently, his school was shut down by apartheid powers when it was discovered to be multiracial. Following the principles of his mentor, Dulcie Howes, Mosaval wanted to share his knowledge and love of ballet with students of all races, so he continued to find ways to dance and to teach.
In 1975, Mosaval was the first dancer to earn a Professional Dancer's Teaching Diploma at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Then, receipt of a Winston Churchill Award allowed him to travel to New York to study modern dance at the Martha Graham School and jazz dance at the Ailey School. In 1977, Mosaval received a Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal for his services to ballet in the United Kingdom. Other awards came to him in recognition of his contributions to South African arts and culture. For his contribution to the performing arts, he was given the Western Cape Arts, Culture, and Heritage Award in 1999; for exemplary conduct, he received a Premier's Commendation Certificate in 2003; and for lifetime achievement, he was awarded the Cape Tercentenary Foundation's Molteno Gold Medal in 2005. For his contribution to the performing arts, and to uplifting young dancers through his teaching, the City of Cape Town then awarded Mosaval its Civic Honours. It had taken almost three decades of exile and personal, artistic triumph in faraway lands before he was allowed to dance in his own country for his own people.
The Arts and Culture Trust bestowed on Mosaval a Lifetime Achievement award for Dance in 2016.
Johaar Mosaval died on August 16, 2023, in Cape Town, South Africa, at the age of 95.
Moses
Moses (Musa) (c. 1300 B.C.). Prophet of Yahweh and the Hebrew tribal leader of the exodus from Egypt. In Islam, Moses is highly regarded as the prophet of the Jews who was the recipient of Scripture and the Law. In the Qur’an, the Biblical prophet is considered as the precursor of, the model for, and the annunciator of the Prophet. Some details differ from the Biblical story. In Islamic tradition, he bears the honorific title of “The person who speaks to God” or “The person whom God addresses.”
Moses is a prophet in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Calculated from references to contemporary rulers Egypt (who are unnamed in the Bible) and to other contemporary kingdoms, Moses is believed to have been born around the middle of the fourteenth century, and died sometime in the thirteenth century B.C.T.
Moses is an important figure in Judaism through being the leader of the exodus from Egypt, and thereby founder of Israel, and being the person receiving the law of the Jewish people. His importance in Christianity is less important than in Judaism, as Jesus introduced a second covenatn for the Christians. But still, the rules of the Ten Commandments have been central to Christianity all through the existence of the religion.
Moses is important to Islam as being one of Muhammad’s forerunners, bringing the same message to humans as Muhammad would be doing 2000 years later. Hence, Muslims consider Moses as a confirmation of the authenticity of the revelations received by and transmitted from Muhammad. However, theologically, Moses is not important, as there is no specific learning ascribed to him alone.
The task of reconstructing the life of Moses according to modern historical science is not easy. There is nothing in the religious sources that clearly contradict an historical Moses, but the time between his lifetime the first written versions on his life is several centuries. And over such a time span, there is ample space for creation of legends, amalgamation of folklore and distortion of facts. And there are clear examples that these things have happened to the stories of Moses. One well known mythical element is clearly imported: the story about him being in a basket and put on the River Nile by his mother and saved by Pharaoh’s daughter (this story is found in both the Bible and the Qur’an). This folklore is parallel to older folklore in Mesopotamian religions.
Another part of the stories which is best understood as mainly folklore, are the plagues that Yahweh inflicted upon Egypt when Pharaoh denied the Israelies the right to leave the country. First, there is no independent historical evidence of this (and the plagues were so hard that they never would have come unrecorded). Secondly, Pharaoh would not have let Moses move around freely and unpunished at times when he through miracles put one natural disaster after another upon the country. This, however, does not root out that this period had natural disasters, but not to the extent we hear about in Exodus 5-12 and certainly not inflicted by an opponent standing in the royal court starting it all without being caught, or stopped.
In presenting the history of the exodus, the transmitters of the story likely invented a character to whom many of the roles of other, and forgotten, characters have been attributed. The hero character is a better and clearer figure than the complexity of the will of the people and the different leaders, as well as clearer than the complexity of economical, political and sociological factors.
But the framework of his life story can be proven on most points. It is clear that there was some sort of exodus of the Hebrews. And the peoples and rulers that the Bible tells about did exist within the same time period, and it is fairly easy to give acceptable explanations on how some of the plagues came along. Also, it is quite easy to explain the changes in religion happening at this period of time: the emphasis on monotheism (as inspired by the monotheism of Akhenaten) and the covenant (as inspired by agreements between strong and weaker rulers of the time (like between the Hittite king and his vassals).
But better proofs of the historical Moses are all the compromising facts: His name was Egyptian (coming from the Egyptian word mose meaning “is born”), he was married to a woman of Midian and he died in a foreign country. Moreover, it is well documented about Moses’ character flaws. He killed a man under circumstances unacceptable to any justice system; he was a poor speaker (a stammerer), and not always a strong leader figure. If Moses had been created as a legendary figure, these elements would most likely have become adjusted.
In conclusion, we must say that we do not know if Moses is historical or not. There are good arguments for both stances.
Moses is of great importance in Judaism and Christianity, and even if the two religions share the same stories, they emphasize slightly different aspects of him. In Judaism, he is the one leading the Hebrews (they were at his time not yet called Jews) to the promised land, he is the greatest prophet and teacher. In Christianity, the march to the promised land is of relatively little importance compared to the Ten Commandments.
The accounts on Moses fills the four latter of the books that often are referred to as the Five Books of Moses: Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, filling up as much as fifteen percent of the entire Christian Bible, and twenty percent of the Old Testament.
From Exodus and Deuteronomy, we hear that Moses was from the tribe of Levi born in Goshen, in ancient Egypt. Around the time of Moses’ birth, Pharaoh ordered that all Hebrew boy children should be killed. Moses (we hear nothing about any original name) was saved by his mother, when she put him into a basket on the River Nile. The infant child was rescued by no other thatn Pharaoh’s daughter, who named him Moses, or more probably a name combined of a god’s name and -mose. In the royal court, Moses was raised by his mother (who had been picked by Pharaoh’s daughter), and there are no accounts of injustice or cruelty with the court.
As a young man Moses killed an Egyptian after the Egyptian had beaten a Hebrew. Moses believes that nobody saw him, and hid the body in the sand, but there were witnesses after all. He had to flee from justice, and settled in the land of Midian (which was Hijaz, while it is possible that Midian tribes had moved into Sinai). Here he married Zipporah, daughter of Jethro.
It is in the landof Midian that Moses experiences for the first time that God contacts him, through a burning bush. This is also the place and time where God reveals his name, Yahweh, in contradiction to the names used on him before El Elyon or El Shaddai. Yahweh can be translated to “to be,” and points probably more to a quality of God, and must not be confused with a name.
Yahweh appointed Moses to return to Egypt and lead the people of Israel out of their hard life in Egypt. Moses was reluctant due to his speech impediment, so his brother Aaron should lead the word for him. But Yahweh also told Moses that he would make Pharaoh’s heart hard so that he would not let the Israelites leave (Exodus 4:21). Exodus 4 contains one more strange account, where Yahweh tried to kill Moses’ son, but was saved when Zipporah cut off his foreskin.
The next stage in the story of Moses fills Exodus 5 to 12, and deals with Moses and Aaron’s unsuccessful attempts to make Pharaoh let the Israelis go, and the punishments Yahweh puts on Pharaoh and the people of Egypt. Pharaoh is warned in front of all the punishments about what will happen.
The first miracle of Moses is not a punishment, as Moses threw his rod to the ground, and it became a snake. But Pharaoh’s sorcerers were able to do the very same. Then the first punishment comes, as Yahweh makes the water of the Nile into blood, so that the fish dies, and nobody could drink the water. But Egyptian sorcerers manage to do the same, so Pharaoh does not change his mind. Yahweh then sent swarms of frogs, mosquitos and flies over Egypt, but it does not produce much more, even if the sorcerers now were forced to admit that this was beyond human power.
This was followed by a plague that kills all the cattle of the civilian Egyptians. Then by abscess attacking both people and animals, then hail showeres, then locusts, and then a thick darkness.
In Exodus 11:3, we find the largest logical breach in the story of Moses, as it says that “Moreover the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaohs servants, and in the sight of the people.” It is clear that nothing could be further from the truth, after all the disasters Moses by Yahweh had put on the innocent Egyptian population.
Yahweh concluded the punishments with killing of all firstborn Egyptians, including Pharaoh’s son. This happened at the same time as Yahweh instituted the rituals for Easter, Pesach, with instructions on slaughtering a lamb, how to eat it, and that every family shall paint blood from it on their door post.
The moral about the plagues and killings is ambiguous to say the least, as we learn from Exodus 11:10 that it was Yahweh who directed the sentiments and will of Pharaoh (as had already been indicated up front, which in the next round was what he then set forth to punish.
The outcome of the punishments was that the Jews could leave. It appears from Exodus 13:17 that Pharaoh let them leave, but this could also be interpreted that the Jews were able to escape in the situation of weakness with the Pharaoh.
How many were allowed to leave Egypt is a question of speculation. Some Jewish traditions run as high as two million, while modern interpretations put the number as low as 15,000.
However, Pharaoh soon changed his mind about letting the Jews leave (by the will of Yahweh [Exodus 12:4 and 12:8]), and sent his forces after the Israelis, and cornered them at the Sea of reeds. The Israelis were saved when Yahweh blew the water away from the sea through the night, at the same time as an angle protected the Israelies from the advancing Egyptian troops. Still at night, the Israelis could pass the sea in safety between water walls, but when the Egyptians followed Moses made the walls fall in. Even in modern translations, “Sea of Reed” is interpreted as the Red Sea, but this is not correct. Reed, which is papyrus, does not grow in salt water, which the Red Sea is. More likely it must be one of the lakes near where today’s Suez Canal lies.
Seeing the dead bodies float up on the shores of the lake, the Israelis started to believe in Yahweh and his servant Moses (Exodus 14:31) and started to sing unto the Lord.
In the following period, Yahweh made sure that the Israelis did not lack what they needed, and he gives them water and food. It is important to notice that these provisions were given after the Israelies murmured against Moses expressing their needs.
The Israelis then organized a law system, where the people were organized to groups, with leaders.
When the people cme to Sinai Mountain, Yahweh descended to the mountain, and met with Moses. From the text we learn that God appears in a manner that could be seen by man, but nothing about any shape.
God then gives Moses the Ten Commandments. This part of the story has been frequently discussed: Did the Israelis receive these regulations while on the journey between Egypt and Canaan, or did they get it in Canaan? Both theories have their followers, but there is no crucial evidence from the content of or the language of the commandments pointing in any of the direction.
Were the commandments the start of a true monotheism of Judaism or not? “Thou shalt have not other gods before me” from Exodus 20:2 indicates that the Israeli’s religion accepted that it existed in a world of other beliefs and gods. But these gods were to be discarded by the believers, and in this sense the Israelis had a practical monotheism, if not the absolute monotheism we see in later theology.
Upon leaving Sinai, Moses and his followers were not welcomed by local rulers, and ended up fighting the Amorites and Bashan, giving room for some of the Israelis.
The last we hear about Moses is that he walks off to a mountain in Jordan with a grand view of Canaan, but never returns.
In Islam, Moses is named Musa (for simplicity, Musa is referred to as Moses even in a Muslim context), and is clearly a prophet selected by God. In 20:13, this is stated directly by God. It is correct to say that Moses was the same messenger of his time, as Muhammad became in his. And just as Muhammad used to do, Moses refers to earlier prophets, of which Adam was the very first. Also we see that the presentation of him has many parallels to the one of Abraham -- there aer more parallels than what is found in the Jewish/Christian tradition.
Moses was the messenger of a Qur’an, in the Arabic tongue (a piece of information which is strange considering that his people did not understand Arabic, and in the Jewish traditions there are no indications of a holy book written in a language nobody could read or understand).
All in all, the Qur’anic presentation of Moses’ life is similar to the biblical one. There are differences, but these are limited to less important details. But the biblical stories are more detailed, and contain far more regulations for the society and religious rituals.
The Qur’an tells that Moses was put into a casket and placed on the river by direct command of God to his mother. The intent was to bring him into the house of God’s enemies. But he is suckled by his mother, as the infant Moses refuses any other nurse. Also in the Qur’an, we learn that he kills an Egyptian, an act which in the Qur’an is represented as unjust, Moses was misguided by Satan, and repents. And just like as in the Bible stories, Moses seeks refuge in Midyan. He is first called upon by God through the burning bush in Tuwa, and he is ordered to take God’s message to Pharaoh.
Facing the Pharaoh and his sorcerers, Moses proves with the help of God, that he possesses the strongest power. The sorcerers are converted on the spot, but not Pharaoh. All in all, Moses performs 9 miracles: 1. The rod and the snake. 2. The white hand. 3. The Deluge. 4. Locusts. 5. Lice. 6. Frogs. 7. Blood. 8. Darkness. 9. Dividing of the sea (after the start of the Exodus from Egypt).
Following the first 8 miracles, and by the will of God, Moses then sets out with his people, called Israelites. Equal to the Bible the Pharaoh tries to prevent this, and sends out his army which is overwhelmed by the ocean, which became the ninth miracle.
Soon, disagreements occur among the Israelites. As in the Bible, they melt their golden jewelry, in order to create a golden calf -- apparently representing the main god of the people before God. This act was instigated either by a Samaritan, it is believed, the Arabic word used in the Qur’an is samari (which also simply could be a proper name). This happens at the same time as Moses receives instructions and admonition on tablets from Gdo. At his return to the Israelis, Moses reacts with anger over their infidelity, and commands them to change their ways immediately The Israelis end up with wandering around in the wilderness for forty years.
Musa see Moses
Moses (Musa) (c. 1300 B.C.). Prophet of Yahweh and the Hebrew tribal leader of the exodus from Egypt. In Islam, Moses is highly regarded as the prophet of the Jews who was the recipient of Scripture and the Law. In the Qur’an, the Biblical prophet is considered as the precursor of, the model for, and the annunciator of the Prophet. Some details differ from the Biblical story. In Islamic tradition, he bears the honorific title of “The person who speaks to God” or “The person whom God addresses.”
Moses is a prophet in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Calculated from references to contemporary rulers Egypt (who are unnamed in the Bible) and to other contemporary kingdoms, Moses is believed to have been born around the middle of the fourteenth century, and died sometime in the thirteenth century B.C.T.
Moses is an important figure in Judaism through being the leader of the exodus from Egypt, and thereby founder of Israel, and being the person receiving the law of the Jewish people. His importance in Christianity is less important than in Judaism, as Jesus introduced a second covenatn for the Christians. But still, the rules of the Ten Commandments have been central to Christianity all through the existence of the religion.
Moses is important to Islam as being one of Muhammad’s forerunners, bringing the same message to humans as Muhammad would be doing 2000 years later. Hence, Muslims consider Moses as a confirmation of the authenticity of the revelations received by and transmitted from Muhammad. However, theologically, Moses is not important, as there is no specific learning ascribed to him alone.
The task of reconstructing the life of Moses according to modern historical science is not easy. There is nothing in the religious sources that clearly contradict an historical Moses, but the time between his lifetime the first written versions on his life is several centuries. And over such a time span, there is ample space for creation of legends, amalgamation of folklore and distortion of facts. And there are clear examples that these things have happened to the stories of Moses. One well known mythical element is clearly imported: the story about him being in a basket and put on the River Nile by his mother and saved by Pharaoh’s daughter (this story is found in both the Bible and the Qur’an). This folklore is parallel to older folklore in Mesopotamian religions.
Another part of the stories which is best understood as mainly folklore, are the plagues that Yahweh inflicted upon Egypt when Pharaoh denied the Israelies the right to leave the country. First, there is no independent historical evidence of this (and the plagues were so hard that they never would have come unrecorded). Secondly, Pharaoh would not have let Moses move around freely and unpunished at times when he through miracles put one natural disaster after another upon the country. This, however, does not root out that this period had natural disasters, but not to the extent we hear about in Exodus 5-12 and certainly not inflicted by an opponent standing in the royal court starting it all without being caught, or stopped.
In presenting the history of the exodus, the transmitters of the story likely invented a character to whom many of the roles of other, and forgotten, characters have been attributed. The hero character is a better and clearer figure than the complexity of the will of the people and the different leaders, as well as clearer than the complexity of economical, political and sociological factors.
But the framework of his life story can be proven on most points. It is clear that there was some sort of exodus of the Hebrews. And the peoples and rulers that the Bible tells about did exist within the same time period, and it is fairly easy to give acceptable explanations on how some of the plagues came along. Also, it is quite easy to explain the changes in religion happening at this period of time: the emphasis on monotheism (as inspired by the monotheism of Akhenaten) and the covenant (as inspired by agreements between strong and weaker rulers of the time (like between the Hittite king and his vassals).
But better proofs of the historical Moses are all the compromising facts: His name was Egyptian (coming from the Egyptian word mose meaning “is born”), he was married to a woman of Midian and he died in a foreign country. Moreover, it is well documented about Moses’ character flaws. He killed a man under circumstances unacceptable to any justice system; he was a poor speaker (a stammerer), and not always a strong leader figure. If Moses had been created as a legendary figure, these elements would most likely have become adjusted.
In conclusion, we must say that we do not know if Moses is historical or not. There are good arguments for both stances.
Moses is of great importance in Judaism and Christianity, and even if the two religions share the same stories, they emphasize slightly different aspects of him. In Judaism, he is the one leading the Hebrews (they were at his time not yet called Jews) to the promised land, he is the greatest prophet and teacher. In Christianity, the march to the promised land is of relatively little importance compared to the Ten Commandments.
The accounts on Moses fills the four latter of the books that often are referred to as the Five Books of Moses: Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, filling up as much as fifteen percent of the entire Christian Bible, and twenty percent of the Old Testament.
From Exodus and Deuteronomy, we hear that Moses was from the tribe of Levi born in Goshen, in ancient Egypt. Around the time of Moses’ birth, Pharaoh ordered that all Hebrew boy children should be killed. Moses (we hear nothing about any original name) was saved by his mother, when she put him into a basket on the River Nile. The infant child was rescued by no other thatn Pharaoh’s daughter, who named him Moses, or more probably a name combined of a god’s name and -mose. In the royal court, Moses was raised by his mother (who had been picked by Pharaoh’s daughter), and there are no accounts of injustice or cruelty with the court.
As a young man Moses killed an Egyptian after the Egyptian had beaten a Hebrew. Moses believes that nobody saw him, and hid the body in the sand, but there were witnesses after all. He had to flee from justice, and settled in the land of Midian (which was Hijaz, while it is possible that Midian tribes had moved into Sinai). Here he married Zipporah, daughter of Jethro.
It is in the landof Midian that Moses experiences for the first time that God contacts him, through a burning bush. This is also the place and time where God reveals his name, Yahweh, in contradiction to the names used on him before El Elyon or El Shaddai. Yahweh can be translated to “to be,” and points probably more to a quality of God, and must not be confused with a name.
Yahweh appointed Moses to return to Egypt and lead the people of Israel out of their hard life in Egypt. Moses was reluctant due to his speech impediment, so his brother Aaron should lead the word for him. But Yahweh also told Moses that he would make Pharaoh’s heart hard so that he would not let the Israelites leave (Exodus 4:21). Exodus 4 contains one more strange account, where Yahweh tried to kill Moses’ son, but was saved when Zipporah cut off his foreskin.
The next stage in the story of Moses fills Exodus 5 to 12, and deals with Moses and Aaron’s unsuccessful attempts to make Pharaoh let the Israelis go, and the punishments Yahweh puts on Pharaoh and the people of Egypt. Pharaoh is warned in front of all the punishments about what will happen.
The first miracle of Moses is not a punishment, as Moses threw his rod to the ground, and it became a snake. But Pharaoh’s sorcerers were able to do the very same. Then the first punishment comes, as Yahweh makes the water of the Nile into blood, so that the fish dies, and nobody could drink the water. But Egyptian sorcerers manage to do the same, so Pharaoh does not change his mind. Yahweh then sent swarms of frogs, mosquitos and flies over Egypt, but it does not produce much more, even if the sorcerers now were forced to admit that this was beyond human power.
This was followed by a plague that kills all the cattle of the civilian Egyptians. Then by abscess attacking both people and animals, then hail showeres, then locusts, and then a thick darkness.
In Exodus 11:3, we find the largest logical breach in the story of Moses, as it says that “Moreover the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaohs servants, and in the sight of the people.” It is clear that nothing could be further from the truth, after all the disasters Moses by Yahweh had put on the innocent Egyptian population.
Yahweh concluded the punishments with killing of all firstborn Egyptians, including Pharaoh’s son. This happened at the same time as Yahweh instituted the rituals for Easter, Pesach, with instructions on slaughtering a lamb, how to eat it, and that every family shall paint blood from it on their door post.
The moral about the plagues and killings is ambiguous to say the least, as we learn from Exodus 11:10 that it was Yahweh who directed the sentiments and will of Pharaoh (as had already been indicated up front, which in the next round was what he then set forth to punish.
The outcome of the punishments was that the Jews could leave. It appears from Exodus 13:17 that Pharaoh let them leave, but this could also be interpreted that the Jews were able to escape in the situation of weakness with the Pharaoh.
How many were allowed to leave Egypt is a question of speculation. Some Jewish traditions run as high as two million, while modern interpretations put the number as low as 15,000.
However, Pharaoh soon changed his mind about letting the Jews leave (by the will of Yahweh [Exodus 12:4 and 12:8]), and sent his forces after the Israelis, and cornered them at the Sea of reeds. The Israelis were saved when Yahweh blew the water away from the sea through the night, at the same time as an angle protected the Israelies from the advancing Egyptian troops. Still at night, the Israelis could pass the sea in safety between water walls, but when the Egyptians followed Moses made the walls fall in. Even in modern translations, “Sea of Reed” is interpreted as the Red Sea, but this is not correct. Reed, which is papyrus, does not grow in salt water, which the Red Sea is. More likely it must be one of the lakes near where today’s Suez Canal lies.
Seeing the dead bodies float up on the shores of the lake, the Israelis started to believe in Yahweh and his servant Moses (Exodus 14:31) and started to sing unto the Lord.
In the following period, Yahweh made sure that the Israelis did not lack what they needed, and he gives them water and food. It is important to notice that these provisions were given after the Israelies murmured against Moses expressing their needs.
The Israelis then organized a law system, where the people were organized to groups, with leaders.
When the people cme to Sinai Mountain, Yahweh descended to the mountain, and met with Moses. From the text we learn that God appears in a manner that could be seen by man, but nothing about any shape.
God then gives Moses the Ten Commandments. This part of the story has been frequently discussed: Did the Israelis receive these regulations while on the journey between Egypt and Canaan, or did they get it in Canaan? Both theories have their followers, but there is no crucial evidence from the content of or the language of the commandments pointing in any of the direction.
Were the commandments the start of a true monotheism of Judaism or not? “Thou shalt have not other gods before me” from Exodus 20:2 indicates that the Israeli’s religion accepted that it existed in a world of other beliefs and gods. But these gods were to be discarded by the believers, and in this sense the Israelis had a practical monotheism, if not the absolute monotheism we see in later theology.
Upon leaving Sinai, Moses and his followers were not welcomed by local rulers, and ended up fighting the Amorites and Bashan, giving room for some of the Israelis.
The last we hear about Moses is that he walks off to a mountain in Jordan with a grand view of Canaan, but never returns.
In Islam, Moses is named Musa (for simplicity, Musa is referred to as Moses even in a Muslim context), and is clearly a prophet selected by God. In 20:13, this is stated directly by God. It is correct to say that Moses was the same messenger of his time, as Muhammad became in his. And just as Muhammad used to do, Moses refers to earlier prophets, of which Adam was the very first. Also we see that the presentation of him has many parallels to the one of Abraham -- there aer more parallels than what is found in the Jewish/Christian tradition.
Moses was the messenger of a Qur’an, in the Arabic tongue (a piece of information which is strange considering that his people did not understand Arabic, and in the Jewish traditions there are no indications of a holy book written in a language nobody could read or understand).
All in all, the Qur’anic presentation of Moses’ life is similar to the biblical one. There are differences, but these are limited to less important details. But the biblical stories are more detailed, and contain far more regulations for the society and religious rituals.
The Qur’an tells that Moses was put into a casket and placed on the river by direct command of God to his mother. The intent was to bring him into the house of God’s enemies. But he is suckled by his mother, as the infant Moses refuses any other nurse. Also in the Qur’an, we learn that he kills an Egyptian, an act which in the Qur’an is represented as unjust, Moses was misguided by Satan, and repents. And just like as in the Bible stories, Moses seeks refuge in Midyan. He is first called upon by God through the burning bush in Tuwa, and he is ordered to take God’s message to Pharaoh.
Facing the Pharaoh and his sorcerers, Moses proves with the help of God, that he possesses the strongest power. The sorcerers are converted on the spot, but not Pharaoh. All in all, Moses performs 9 miracles: 1. The rod and the snake. 2. The white hand. 3. The Deluge. 4. Locusts. 5. Lice. 6. Frogs. 7. Blood. 8. Darkness. 9. Dividing of the sea (after the start of the Exodus from Egypt).
Following the first 8 miracles, and by the will of God, Moses then sets out with his people, called Israelites. Equal to the Bible the Pharaoh tries to prevent this, and sends out his army which is overwhelmed by the ocean, which became the ninth miracle.
Soon, disagreements occur among the Israelites. As in the Bible, they melt their golden jewelry, in order to create a golden calf -- apparently representing the main god of the people before God. This act was instigated either by a Samaritan, it is believed, the Arabic word used in the Qur’an is samari (which also simply could be a proper name). This happens at the same time as Moses receives instructions and admonition on tablets from Gdo. At his return to the Israelis, Moses reacts with anger over their infidelity, and commands them to change their ways immediately The Israelis end up with wandering around in the wilderness for forty years.
Musa see Moses
Mossi
Mossi. The Mossi are one of the major peoples living in the basin of the Volta River, south of the great bend of the Niger River. A conservative estimate is that slightly more than one-third of the Mossi are Muslim.
The Mossi came into contact with Islam through the Songhay Empire. From 1328 through 1333 the Yatenga Mossi sacked the Songhay capital of Timbuktu. The Songhay defeated them in 1477, and in 1498 the great Songhay emperor, Askia, proclaimed a jihad against the Mossi when their leaders refused to adopt Islam. Despite these Songhay attacks, the Mossi were never conquered until the coming of the French in 1896. The Mossi remained too strong to be conquered on their home ground but were not strong enough to conquer other areas.
The Mossi resisted conversion to Islam in part because of the close association of their political and religious systems. A Mossi ruler required the aid ancestors, approached through the ancestor cult. A Muslim chief would have to forfeit this basis for his rule. Since the Mossi states were strong enough to resist conquest, Islam could only reach them through diffusion or persuasion. In the late 1700s several Ouagadougou kings were converted to Islam, but without lasting effect and without insisting that their heirs be Muslim.
Because of this history, the Mossi are often noted as the most important people of the West African savanna to have resisted Islam, although somewhere between one-fourth and one-third are now Muslim. Their conversion has come through their contact, beginning around 1684, with Mande traders who settled among them. In 1780, a Mogho Naba (Ouagadougou king) who had a Mande mother granted these immigrants, known as Dyula or (especially) Yarse, the right to settle throughout his realm. Today, the Yarse have completely assimilated Mossi culture. They speak Moore and live as do other Mossi. However, they have remained Muslim, since Islam is an essential attribute in long-distance trade.
Not all Yarse are traders. Many live as farmers. While some writers describe the Yarse in the Mossi kingdom of Yatenga as marrying only other Yarse. Other data show them freely marrying ordinary Mossi. Indeed, Tenkodogo Mossi draw a distinction between Yarse and Mossi converts to Islam. The latter are seen as more purely Muslim. Yarse Islamic practices are more syncretic.
Diffusion of Islam into Mossi culture is not surprising given their location on the fringes of major Muslim states in the past and their position astride Muslim-dominated trade routes, but it is greater than one would expect from the conventional description of the Mossi as anti-Islamic.
The spread of Islam was aided by the French conquest in 1896-1897, which cast doubt on the efficacy of the traditional religion because it did not prevent the defeat. The close connection between the Mossi political system and religion had reinforced the latter when the former was strong. The linkage continued in defeat with opposite results. As a consequence, Mossi became more receptive to Muslim missionaries. These were largely from other African savanna peoples and were evidence that one could convert without seriously disrupting a familiar way of life. Christian missions suffered from association with the colonial rulers, from having mostly alien clergy and from their more striking demands (especially monogamy) upon propective converts.
Islam continued to gain ground over Christianity as an alternative to Mossi traditional religion, even though Roman Catholicism missions controlled the colonial schools which trained those who took power from the French. Many civil servants are Christian. The first president (1961-1966) of independent Upper Volta, Maurice Yameogo, was a Catholic Mossi, as is the first African cardinal, Archbishop Zoungrana of Ouagadougou. The military presidents who followed were Muslim but not Mossi: General Sangoule Lamizana (1966-1980) and Colonel Saye Zerbo (1980-1982) are Samo, a Mande people. The November 1982 coup d’etat leadership retained a non-Muslim as chief of the armed forces but installed a Catholic Mossi, Major Jean Baptiste Ouedraogo, as chair of the People’s Provisional Salvation Council. In foreign policy, Upper Volta has become more conscious of its Muslim neighbors and citizens. Despite the overall minority status of Muslims, under President Lamizana Upper Volta applied at the 1973 Pan Islamic Conference in Pakistan to join the Islamic grouping.
Mossi Muslims are Sunni of the Maliki school of law. Like other West African Muslims, they tend to be followers of one or another tariqa. Two of these brotherhoods, the Qadiri and the stricter Tijani, are important. Despite their voluntary membership, though, membership in a tariqa is much more a consequence of family tradition or the affiliation of one’s religious initiator than the result of conscious choice between schools of religious interpretation.
The impact of Islam on Mossi society and culture is considerable. Mossi Muslims are, however, enough of a minority and a historical and cultural novelty that they are conscious of being part of a non-Muslim whole. West African Islam in the savanna belt is known for embracing a continuum of believers ranging from urban Quranic scholars of great orthodoxy to rural farmers repeating prayers by rote alongside traditional shrines. But whereas a Hausa farmer, say, in Nigeria is part of a self-consciously Muslim society with institutional supports, a Mossi Muslim must rely on his own values and commitments to “Islamize” his daily life. The continuing incorporation of Mossi and Upper Volta into regional and world economic and political systems favors universalistic religions, and Islam offers Mossi many advantages. Both Christianity and Islam are expanding at the expense of traditional religion, but Islam has the greater momentum.
Mossi. The Mossi are one of the major peoples living in the basin of the Volta River, south of the great bend of the Niger River. A conservative estimate is that slightly more than one-third of the Mossi are Muslim.
The Mossi came into contact with Islam through the Songhay Empire. From 1328 through 1333 the Yatenga Mossi sacked the Songhay capital of Timbuktu. The Songhay defeated them in 1477, and in 1498 the great Songhay emperor, Askia, proclaimed a jihad against the Mossi when their leaders refused to adopt Islam. Despite these Songhay attacks, the Mossi were never conquered until the coming of the French in 1896. The Mossi remained too strong to be conquered on their home ground but were not strong enough to conquer other areas.
The Mossi resisted conversion to Islam in part because of the close association of their political and religious systems. A Mossi ruler required the aid ancestors, approached through the ancestor cult. A Muslim chief would have to forfeit this basis for his rule. Since the Mossi states were strong enough to resist conquest, Islam could only reach them through diffusion or persuasion. In the late 1700s several Ouagadougou kings were converted to Islam, but without lasting effect and without insisting that their heirs be Muslim.
Because of this history, the Mossi are often noted as the most important people of the West African savanna to have resisted Islam, although somewhere between one-fourth and one-third are now Muslim. Their conversion has come through their contact, beginning around 1684, with Mande traders who settled among them. In 1780, a Mogho Naba (Ouagadougou king) who had a Mande mother granted these immigrants, known as Dyula or (especially) Yarse, the right to settle throughout his realm. Today, the Yarse have completely assimilated Mossi culture. They speak Moore and live as do other Mossi. However, they have remained Muslim, since Islam is an essential attribute in long-distance trade.
Not all Yarse are traders. Many live as farmers. While some writers describe the Yarse in the Mossi kingdom of Yatenga as marrying only other Yarse. Other data show them freely marrying ordinary Mossi. Indeed, Tenkodogo Mossi draw a distinction between Yarse and Mossi converts to Islam. The latter are seen as more purely Muslim. Yarse Islamic practices are more syncretic.
Diffusion of Islam into Mossi culture is not surprising given their location on the fringes of major Muslim states in the past and their position astride Muslim-dominated trade routes, but it is greater than one would expect from the conventional description of the Mossi as anti-Islamic.
The spread of Islam was aided by the French conquest in 1896-1897, which cast doubt on the efficacy of the traditional religion because it did not prevent the defeat. The close connection between the Mossi political system and religion had reinforced the latter when the former was strong. The linkage continued in defeat with opposite results. As a consequence, Mossi became more receptive to Muslim missionaries. These were largely from other African savanna peoples and were evidence that one could convert without seriously disrupting a familiar way of life. Christian missions suffered from association with the colonial rulers, from having mostly alien clergy and from their more striking demands (especially monogamy) upon propective converts.
Islam continued to gain ground over Christianity as an alternative to Mossi traditional religion, even though Roman Catholicism missions controlled the colonial schools which trained those who took power from the French. Many civil servants are Christian. The first president (1961-1966) of independent Upper Volta, Maurice Yameogo, was a Catholic Mossi, as is the first African cardinal, Archbishop Zoungrana of Ouagadougou. The military presidents who followed were Muslim but not Mossi: General Sangoule Lamizana (1966-1980) and Colonel Saye Zerbo (1980-1982) are Samo, a Mande people. The November 1982 coup d’etat leadership retained a non-Muslim as chief of the armed forces but installed a Catholic Mossi, Major Jean Baptiste Ouedraogo, as chair of the People’s Provisional Salvation Council. In foreign policy, Upper Volta has become more conscious of its Muslim neighbors and citizens. Despite the overall minority status of Muslims, under President Lamizana Upper Volta applied at the 1973 Pan Islamic Conference in Pakistan to join the Islamic grouping.
Mossi Muslims are Sunni of the Maliki school of law. Like other West African Muslims, they tend to be followers of one or another tariqa. Two of these brotherhoods, the Qadiri and the stricter Tijani, are important. Despite their voluntary membership, though, membership in a tariqa is much more a consequence of family tradition or the affiliation of one’s religious initiator than the result of conscious choice between schools of religious interpretation.
The impact of Islam on Mossi society and culture is considerable. Mossi Muslims are, however, enough of a minority and a historical and cultural novelty that they are conscious of being part of a non-Muslim whole. West African Islam in the savanna belt is known for embracing a continuum of believers ranging from urban Quranic scholars of great orthodoxy to rural farmers repeating prayers by rote alongside traditional shrines. But whereas a Hausa farmer, say, in Nigeria is part of a self-consciously Muslim society with institutional supports, a Mossi Muslim must rely on his own values and commitments to “Islamize” his daily life. The continuing incorporation of Mossi and Upper Volta into regional and world economic and political systems favors universalistic religions, and Islam offers Mossi many advantages. Both Christianity and Islam are expanding at the expense of traditional religion, but Islam has the greater momentum.
Mozarabs
Mozarabs. “Arabized” people. The term is usually applied to the Christians from Spain, of Visigothic liturgy and Arabic language. The term Mozarabs was also used in Christian Spain as a sobriquet against those Christians who preferred to stay rather than flee from the Muslim invader. The Mozarabs were thereby considered a dubious element, having suffered the contagion of the Arabo-Muslim enemy. Their artistic manifestations are also found outside Muslim Spain, and their liturgy is preserved in Toledo.
The Mozarabs were Iberian Christians who lived under Moorish Muslim rule in Al-Andalus. Their descendants remained unconverted to Islam, but did however adopt elements of Arabic language and culture. They were mostly Roman Catholics of the Visigothic or Mozarabic Rite.
Most of the Mozarabs were descendants of the Hispano–Gothic Christians who became Arabic speakers under Islamic rule. Many were also Neo-Mozarabs, that is Northern Europeans who had come to the Iberian Peninsula and picked up Arabic, thereby entering the Mozarabic community.
Some were Arab and Berber Christians coupled with Muslim converts to Christianity who, as Arabic speakers, naturally were at home among the original Mozarabs. A prominent example of Muslims who became Mozarabs by embracing Christianity is the Andalusian rebel and Anti-Umayyad military leader, Umar ibn Hafsun. The Mozarabs of Muslim origin were descendants of those Muslims who converted to Christianity, following the conquest of Toledo and perhaps also, following the expeditions of king Alfonso I of Aragon. These Mozarabs of Muslim origin, who converted en masse at the end of the 11th century, many of them Muladi (ethnic Iberians previously converted to Islam), are totally distinct from the Mudéjars and Moriscos who converted gradually to Christianity between the 12th and 17th centuries. Some Mozarabs were even Converso Sephardi Jews who likewise became part of the Mozarabic milieu.
Separate Mozarab enclaves were located in the large Muslim cities, especially Toledo, Córdoba, Zaragoza, and Seville.
The Mozarabs also maintained their own bishoprics, churches, and monasteries and translated the Bible into Arabic. The Mozarabs eventually relocated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, bringing with them the architectural style of Islamic Córdoba, characterized by the horseshoe arch and the ribbed dome.
Mozarabs. “Arabized” people. The term is usually applied to the Christians from Spain, of Visigothic liturgy and Arabic language. The term Mozarabs was also used in Christian Spain as a sobriquet against those Christians who preferred to stay rather than flee from the Muslim invader. The Mozarabs were thereby considered a dubious element, having suffered the contagion of the Arabo-Muslim enemy. Their artistic manifestations are also found outside Muslim Spain, and their liturgy is preserved in Toledo.
The Mozarabs were Iberian Christians who lived under Moorish Muslim rule in Al-Andalus. Their descendants remained unconverted to Islam, but did however adopt elements of Arabic language and culture. They were mostly Roman Catholics of the Visigothic or Mozarabic Rite.
Most of the Mozarabs were descendants of the Hispano–Gothic Christians who became Arabic speakers under Islamic rule. Many were also Neo-Mozarabs, that is Northern Europeans who had come to the Iberian Peninsula and picked up Arabic, thereby entering the Mozarabic community.
Some were Arab and Berber Christians coupled with Muslim converts to Christianity who, as Arabic speakers, naturally were at home among the original Mozarabs. A prominent example of Muslims who became Mozarabs by embracing Christianity is the Andalusian rebel and Anti-Umayyad military leader, Umar ibn Hafsun. The Mozarabs of Muslim origin were descendants of those Muslims who converted to Christianity, following the conquest of Toledo and perhaps also, following the expeditions of king Alfonso I of Aragon. These Mozarabs of Muslim origin, who converted en masse at the end of the 11th century, many of them Muladi (ethnic Iberians previously converted to Islam), are totally distinct from the Mudéjars and Moriscos who converted gradually to Christianity between the 12th and 17th centuries. Some Mozarabs were even Converso Sephardi Jews who likewise became part of the Mozarabic milieu.
Separate Mozarab enclaves were located in the large Muslim cities, especially Toledo, Córdoba, Zaragoza, and Seville.
The Mozarabs also maintained their own bishoprics, churches, and monasteries and translated the Bible into Arabic. The Mozarabs eventually relocated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, bringing with them the architectural style of Islamic Córdoba, characterized by the horseshoe arch and the ribbed dome.
Mu‘allim Naji
Mu‘allim Naji (1850, Istanbul - 1893, Istanbul). Ottoman Turkish poet. He was highly concerned about the Ottoman Turkish language and regretted its deterioration in the name of simplification and modernization.
Naji, Mu'allim see Mu‘allim Naji
Mu‘allim Naji (1850, Istanbul - 1893, Istanbul). Ottoman Turkish poet. He was highly concerned about the Ottoman Turkish language and regretted its deterioration in the name of simplification and modernization.
Naji, Mu'allim see Mu‘allim Naji
Mu‘awiya I ibn Abi Sufyan
Mu‘awiya I ibn Abi Sufyan (Mu'awiyah I) (Moawiyah) (b. 602, Mecca, Arabia - d. April/May 680, Damascus). Founder of the Umayyad dynasty of caliphs based in Syria (r.661-680). He had been a crypto-Muslim since 628, and made his Islam manifest in 630. His sister Umm Habiba was married to the Prophet. He functioned as a commander against the Byzantines, and in 646 Syria and al-Jazira were under his control. Against the Byzantines, he established strong garrisons along the coast and instituted Arab maritime warfare in the Mediterranean. The Caliph ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan, while being besieged in his Medinan residence in 656, sent word to Mu‘awiya asking for help, but the relief force turned back on learning that ‘Uthman had been killed. Thereafter Mu‘awiya bided his time while the Prophet’s son-in-law ‘Ali sought to establish himself as leader. After the Battle of the Camel, ‘Ali elicited Mu‘awiya’s oath of allegiance, but, with the support of ‘Amr ibn al-‘As, Mu‘awiya decided to fight ‘Ali, alleging vengeance for ‘Uthman. After the Battle of Siffin in 656, Mu‘awiya was recognized as caliph by the Syrians and by ‘Amr ibn al-‘As, who then went to conquer Egypt. While ‘Ali’s position grew weaker in Iraq fighting the Kharijites, Mu‘awiya again bided his time. ‘Ali was murdered by a Kharijite in 661, and Mu ‘awiya became caliph. To posterity, his image is ambivalent. He was seen not just as the man who perverted the caliphate into kingship, but also as a clever and successful ruler. He is either cursed or venerated, the legitimacy of his caliphate being a far more important issue than its historical nature.
Muʿāwiyah I was an early Islamic leader and founder of the great Umayyad dynasty of caliphs. He fought against the fourth caliph, ʿAlī (Muhammad’s son-in-law), seized Egypt, and assumed the caliphate after ʿAlī’s assassination in 661. He restored unity to the Muslim empire and made Damascus its capital. He reigned from 661 to 680.
It is ironic that a man who was to become the political-religious head of Islam was born into a clan (ʿAbd Shams) that rejected the Prophet Muhammad in his home city, Mecca, and continued to oppose him on the battlefield after he had emigrated to Medina. Muʿāwiyah did not become a Muslim until Muhammad had conquered Mecca and had reconciled his former enemies by gifts. Possibly as a part of Muhammad’s policy of conciliation, Muʿāwiyah was made a scribe in his service. But Muʿāwiyah’s contributions to Islamic history are wholly associated with his career in Syria, which began shortly after the death of the Prophet, when he, along with his brother Yazīd, served in the tribal armies sent from Arabia against the Byzantine forces in Syria.
Upon the death of Yazīd in 640, Muʿāwiyah was appointed governor of Damascus by the caliph ʿUmar and gradually gained mastery over other areas of Syria. By 647 Muʿāwiyah had built a Syrian tribal army strong enough to repel a Byzantine attack and in subsequent years to take the offensive against the Byzantines in campaigns that resulted in the capture of Cyprus (649) and Rhodes (654) and a devastating defeat of the Byzantine navy off the coast of Lycia in Anatolia (655). At the same time, Muʿāwiyah periodically dispatched land expeditions into Anatolia. All these campaigns, however, came to a halt with the accession of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib to the caliphate, when a new and decisive phase of Muʿāwiyah’s career began.
As a kinsman of the slain caliph ʿUthmān, Muʿāwiyah bore the duty of revenge. Because ʿAlī neglected to apprehend and punish ʿUthmān’s murderers, Muʿāwiyah regarded him as an accomplice to the murder and refused to acknowledge his caliphate. Thereupon ʿAlī marched to the Euphrates border of Syria and engaged Muʿāwiyah’s troops at the famous Battle of Ṣiffīn (657). Muʿāwiyah’s guile turned near defeat into a truce. Resorting to a trick that played upon the religious sensibilities of ʿAlī’s forces, he persuaded the enemy to enter into negotiations that ultimately cast doubt on the legitimacy of ʿAlī’s caliphate and alienated a sizable number of his supporters. When these former supporters—the Khārijites—rose in rebellion against ʿAlī, Muʿāwiyah took advantage of ʿAlī’s difficulties in Iraq to send a force to seize control of Egypt. Thus, when ʿAlī was assassinated in 661, Muʿāwiyah held both Syria and Egypt and, as commander of the largest force in the Muslim empire, had the strongest claim to the caliphate. ʿAlī’s son Ḥasan was persuaded to remove himself from public life in exchange for a subsidy, which Muʿāwiyah provided.
During his 20-year governorship of Syria and during the war against ʿAlī, Muʿāwiyah had succeeded in recruiting and training a large Arab tribal army that was remarkably loyal to him. It was therefore natural that he should base his caliphate in Syria, with Damascus as the new capital of Islam. But, if Muʿāwiyah’s chief support came from the tribes of Syria, the tribes of other areas posed the chief threat to his reign. It is not surprising then that early Umayyad government followed certain tribal principles as a means of retaining and winning the loyalty of the Arabs. The clearest examples of such a policy are provided by Muʿāwiyah’s adoption of two tribal institutions: the council of notables—the shūrā—which was convoked by the caliph for consultation and the delegations—wufūd—which were sent by tribes to keep the caliph informed of their interest. Within this context, Muʿāwiyah ruled as a traditional Arab chieftain. Although he may not have consciously encouraged renewed warfare against non-Muslim territory as a means of directing Bedouin aggressive tendencies into channels that would aggrandize Islam and stabilize his own power, there is no doubt that warfare served these purposes during his reign, and in this respect it is significant that Muʿāwiyah used the Syrian army only for domestic defense and for campaigns against the Byzantines, who threatened the borders of Syria.
During the civil war, Muʿāwiyah had purchased a truce with the Byzantines in order to free his army for the struggle against ʿAlī. Soon after his accession to the caliphate, however, he curtailed the payment of tribute and sent expeditions against the Byzantines almost yearly. These campaigns served both to fulfill Muʿāwiyah’s obligation to conduct holy war (jihad) against unbelievers and to keep his Syrian troops in fighting trim. Otherwise, the war against Byzantium was inconclusive. Even though two expeditions reached the vicinity of Constantinople, the Arabs never succeeded in permanently occupying territory in Asia Minor beyond the Taurus Mountains. Troops stationed in other parts of Muʿāwiyah’s empire were sent on campaigns into remote areas. In North Africa, raids were conducted as far west as Tlemcen in present-day Algeria. More permanent, however, was the conquest of Tripolitania and Ifrīqīyah, which was consolidated by the foundation in 670 of the garrison city of Kairouan, soon to become the base for further expansion later in the Umayyad period. At the same time, a vigorous campaign was being conducted in the east by means of which Muslim borders were extended to the Oxus River and Khorāsān was established as an Umayyad province.
It had become apparent during the reigns of the first caliphs that tribal tradition and the practices of Muhammad in Medina were inadequate resources for administering a vast empire. To solve this problem, Muʿāwiyah resorted to a solution that lay at hand in Syria—that is, the imitation of administrative procedures that had evolved during centuries of Roman and Byzantine rule there. Although the process by which the borrowing took place is not fully known, it is clear that Muʿāwiyah initiated certain practices that were apparently inspired by the previous tradition. Basically, he aimed at increased organization and centralization of the caliphal government in order to exert control over steadily expanding territories. This he achieved by the establishment of bureaus—dīwāns—in Damascus to conduct the affairs of government efficiently. Early Arabic sources credit two dīwāns in particular to Muʿāwiyah: the dīwān al-khatam, or chancellery, and the barīd, or postal service, both of which were obviously intended to improve communications within the empire. Prominent positions within the nascent bureaucracy were held by Christians, some of whom belonged to families that had served in Byzantine governments. The employment of Christians was part of a broader policy of religious tolerance that was necessitated by the presence of large Christian populations in the conquered provinces, especially in Syria itself.
Such administrative innovations coupled with the observance of tribal traditions caused historians of a later period to deny Muʿāwiyah the religious title of caliph and to characterize him as a king (malik) instead. As a symbol of the increasingly secular nature of the caliphate, derived in part from a non-Islamic tradition, the title is apt for Muʿāwiyah and for most of the Umayyads. It is particularly appropriate for the most startling of all of Muʿāwiyah’s innovations, the one by which he secured the allegiance of the tribes for the caliphate of his son Yazīd and thereby established the practice of hereditary rule in Islam. As an alternative to the various unreliable precedents for selecting a caliph, this measure was certainly consonant with Muʿāwiyah’s policy and achievement as caliph, which, in summary, consisted of invigorating the theocratic origins of Islamic governance with borrowings from other traditions better adapted to the demands of tribesmen and the needs of an empire.
Muʿāwiyah stands out as one of the few caliphs who is depicted both in Muslim historiography and in modern scholarship as a decisive force in Islamic history. Undoubtedly one reason for the prominence that is assigned to him is that he was a controversial figure. Pious scholars of the dominant Sunni sect of Islam, together with writers of the minority, dissenting Shīʿites, have always heaped opprobrium on Muʿāwiyah: the Sunni because of his deviations from the pattern of leadership set by the Prophet Muhammad and the “rightly guided” caliphs, the Shīʿites because he had usurped the caliphate from ʿAlī.
Although Muʿāwiyah has been and still is condemned for his sins from these two quarters, he has also been the subject of lavish praise in Arabic literature as the ideal ruler. Unlike most of the other caliphs, Muʿāwiyah looms large in Islamic history because he has consistently aroused partisanship at different extremes. But, beneath the biased portraits given in traditional Muslim historiography, there is a person whose actual accomplishments were of great magnitude quite apart from partisan value judgments and interpretations. These accomplishments lay primarily in political and military administration, through which Muʿāwiyah was able to rebuild a Muslim state that had fallen into anarchy and to renew the Arab Muslim military offensive against unbelievers.
Mu'awiyah I see Mu‘awiya I ibn Abi Sufyan
Moawiyah see Mu‘awiya I ibn Abi Sufyan
Muʿāwiyah I was an early Islamic leader and founder of the great Umayyad dynasty of caliphs. He fought against the fourth caliph, ʿAlī (Muhammad’s son-in-law), seized Egypt, and assumed the caliphate after ʿAlī’s assassination in 661. He restored unity to the Muslim empire and made Damascus its capital. He reigned from 661 to 680.
It is ironic that a man who was to become the political-religious head of Islam was born into a clan (ʿAbd Shams) that rejected the Prophet Muhammad in his home city, Mecca, and continued to oppose him on the battlefield after he had emigrated to Medina. Muʿāwiyah did not become a Muslim until Muhammad had conquered Mecca and had reconciled his former enemies by gifts. Possibly as a part of Muhammad’s policy of conciliation, Muʿāwiyah was made a scribe in his service. But Muʿāwiyah’s contributions to Islamic history are wholly associated with his career in Syria, which began shortly after the death of the Prophet, when he, along with his brother Yazīd, served in the tribal armies sent from Arabia against the Byzantine forces in Syria.
Upon the death of Yazīd in 640, Muʿāwiyah was appointed governor of Damascus by the caliph ʿUmar and gradually gained mastery over other areas of Syria. By 647 Muʿāwiyah had built a Syrian tribal army strong enough to repel a Byzantine attack and in subsequent years to take the offensive against the Byzantines in campaigns that resulted in the capture of Cyprus (649) and Rhodes (654) and a devastating defeat of the Byzantine navy off the coast of Lycia in Anatolia (655). At the same time, Muʿāwiyah periodically dispatched land expeditions into Anatolia. All these campaigns, however, came to a halt with the accession of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib to the caliphate, when a new and decisive phase of Muʿāwiyah’s career began.
As a kinsman of the slain caliph ʿUthmān, Muʿāwiyah bore the duty of revenge. Because ʿAlī neglected to apprehend and punish ʿUthmān’s murderers, Muʿāwiyah regarded him as an accomplice to the murder and refused to acknowledge his caliphate. Thereupon ʿAlī marched to the Euphrates border of Syria and engaged Muʿāwiyah’s troops at the famous Battle of Ṣiffīn (657). Muʿāwiyah’s guile turned near defeat into a truce. Resorting to a trick that played upon the religious sensibilities of ʿAlī’s forces, he persuaded the enemy to enter into negotiations that ultimately cast doubt on the legitimacy of ʿAlī’s caliphate and alienated a sizable number of his supporters. When these former supporters—the Khārijites—rose in rebellion against ʿAlī, Muʿāwiyah took advantage of ʿAlī’s difficulties in Iraq to send a force to seize control of Egypt. Thus, when ʿAlī was assassinated in 661, Muʿāwiyah held both Syria and Egypt and, as commander of the largest force in the Muslim empire, had the strongest claim to the caliphate. ʿAlī’s son Ḥasan was persuaded to remove himself from public life in exchange for a subsidy, which Muʿāwiyah provided.
During his 20-year governorship of Syria and during the war against ʿAlī, Muʿāwiyah had succeeded in recruiting and training a large Arab tribal army that was remarkably loyal to him. It was therefore natural that he should base his caliphate in Syria, with Damascus as the new capital of Islam. But, if Muʿāwiyah’s chief support came from the tribes of Syria, the tribes of other areas posed the chief threat to his reign. It is not surprising then that early Umayyad government followed certain tribal principles as a means of retaining and winning the loyalty of the Arabs. The clearest examples of such a policy are provided by Muʿāwiyah’s adoption of two tribal institutions: the council of notables—the shūrā—which was convoked by the caliph for consultation and the delegations—wufūd—which were sent by tribes to keep the caliph informed of their interest. Within this context, Muʿāwiyah ruled as a traditional Arab chieftain. Although he may not have consciously encouraged renewed warfare against non-Muslim territory as a means of directing Bedouin aggressive tendencies into channels that would aggrandize Islam and stabilize his own power, there is no doubt that warfare served these purposes during his reign, and in this respect it is significant that Muʿāwiyah used the Syrian army only for domestic defense and for campaigns against the Byzantines, who threatened the borders of Syria.
During the civil war, Muʿāwiyah had purchased a truce with the Byzantines in order to free his army for the struggle against ʿAlī. Soon after his accession to the caliphate, however, he curtailed the payment of tribute and sent expeditions against the Byzantines almost yearly. These campaigns served both to fulfill Muʿāwiyah’s obligation to conduct holy war (jihad) against unbelievers and to keep his Syrian troops in fighting trim. Otherwise, the war against Byzantium was inconclusive. Even though two expeditions reached the vicinity of Constantinople, the Arabs never succeeded in permanently occupying territory in Asia Minor beyond the Taurus Mountains. Troops stationed in other parts of Muʿāwiyah’s empire were sent on campaigns into remote areas. In North Africa, raids were conducted as far west as Tlemcen in present-day Algeria. More permanent, however, was the conquest of Tripolitania and Ifrīqīyah, which was consolidated by the foundation in 670 of the garrison city of Kairouan, soon to become the base for further expansion later in the Umayyad period. At the same time, a vigorous campaign was being conducted in the east by means of which Muslim borders were extended to the Oxus River and Khorāsān was established as an Umayyad province.
It had become apparent during the reigns of the first caliphs that tribal tradition and the practices of Muhammad in Medina were inadequate resources for administering a vast empire. To solve this problem, Muʿāwiyah resorted to a solution that lay at hand in Syria—that is, the imitation of administrative procedures that had evolved during centuries of Roman and Byzantine rule there. Although the process by which the borrowing took place is not fully known, it is clear that Muʿāwiyah initiated certain practices that were apparently inspired by the previous tradition. Basically, he aimed at increased organization and centralization of the caliphal government in order to exert control over steadily expanding territories. This he achieved by the establishment of bureaus—dīwāns—in Damascus to conduct the affairs of government efficiently. Early Arabic sources credit two dīwāns in particular to Muʿāwiyah: the dīwān al-khatam, or chancellery, and the barīd, or postal service, both of which were obviously intended to improve communications within the empire. Prominent positions within the nascent bureaucracy were held by Christians, some of whom belonged to families that had served in Byzantine governments. The employment of Christians was part of a broader policy of religious tolerance that was necessitated by the presence of large Christian populations in the conquered provinces, especially in Syria itself.
Such administrative innovations coupled with the observance of tribal traditions caused historians of a later period to deny Muʿāwiyah the religious title of caliph and to characterize him as a king (malik) instead. As a symbol of the increasingly secular nature of the caliphate, derived in part from a non-Islamic tradition, the title is apt for Muʿāwiyah and for most of the Umayyads. It is particularly appropriate for the most startling of all of Muʿāwiyah’s innovations, the one by which he secured the allegiance of the tribes for the caliphate of his son Yazīd and thereby established the practice of hereditary rule in Islam. As an alternative to the various unreliable precedents for selecting a caliph, this measure was certainly consonant with Muʿāwiyah’s policy and achievement as caliph, which, in summary, consisted of invigorating the theocratic origins of Islamic governance with borrowings from other traditions better adapted to the demands of tribesmen and the needs of an empire.
Muʿāwiyah stands out as one of the few caliphs who is depicted both in Muslim historiography and in modern scholarship as a decisive force in Islamic history. Undoubtedly one reason for the prominence that is assigned to him is that he was a controversial figure. Pious scholars of the dominant Sunni sect of Islam, together with writers of the minority, dissenting Shīʿites, have always heaped opprobrium on Muʿāwiyah: the Sunni because of his deviations from the pattern of leadership set by the Prophet Muhammad and the “rightly guided” caliphs, the Shīʿites because he had usurped the caliphate from ʿAlī.
Although Muʿāwiyah has been and still is condemned for his sins from these two quarters, he has also been the subject of lavish praise in Arabic literature as the ideal ruler. Unlike most of the other caliphs, Muʿāwiyah looms large in Islamic history because he has consistently aroused partisanship at different extremes. But, beneath the biased portraits given in traditional Muslim historiography, there is a person whose actual accomplishments were of great magnitude quite apart from partisan value judgments and interpretations. These accomplishments lay primarily in political and military administration, through which Muʿāwiyah was able to rebuild a Muslim state that had fallen into anarchy and to renew the Arab Muslim military offensive against unbelievers.
Mu'awiyah I see Mu‘awiya I ibn Abi Sufyan
Moawiyah see Mu‘awiya I ibn Abi Sufyan
Mu’ayyad bi-‘llah Muhammad, al-
Mu’ayyad bi-‘llah Muhammad, al-. Name of two Qasimi Zaydi Imams of Yemen, the best known being al-Mansur bi’llah al-Qasim (b. 1582; r. 1620-1644). During his reign the Ottoman Turks were expelled from Yemen in 1635 after a continuous presence of a century.
Mu’ayyad bi-‘llah Muhammad, al-. Name of two Qasimi Zaydi Imams of Yemen, the best known being al-Mansur bi’llah al-Qasim (b. 1582; r. 1620-1644). During his reign the Ottoman Turks were expelled from Yemen in 1635 after a continuous presence of a century.
Mu’ayyad fi’l-Din Abu Nasr, al-
Mu’ayyad fi’l-Din Abu Nasr, al- (c.990-1077) was an eminent Isma‘ili missionary. He played a leading role as an intermediary between the Fatimids and al-Basasiri, the military commander of the Buyids, in the campaign of 1057 against the Saljuqs. He left an autobiography which is considered to be the apogee of Isma‘ili learning.
Mu’ayyad fi’l-Din Abu Nasr, al- (c.990-1077) was an eminent Isma‘ili missionary. He played a leading role as an intermediary between the Fatimids and al-Basasiri, the military commander of the Buyids, in the campaign of 1057 against the Saljuqs. He left an autobiography which is considered to be the apogee of Isma‘ili learning.
Mubarak, Hosni
Mubarak, Hosni (Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak) (Muḥammad Ḥasnī Sayyid Mubārak) (Husnī Mubārak) (b. May 4, 1928). President of Egypt (1981-2011). Mubarak became president in 1981. Mubarak was born in Kafr-al Meselha, the son of an inspector of the Ministry of Justice. Mubarak was educated at Egypt’s national Military Academy and Air Force Academy and at the Frunze General Staff Academy in Moscow in the Soviet Union.
Mubarak joined the air force in 1950, and became air force chief of staff in 1969, and commander in chief in 1972. He had several military positions under President Sadat, such as deputy minister of war, and was one of Sadat’s closest advisors.
In 1975, Mubarak was appointed vice president. Mubarak was elected president on October 13, 1981, one week after Sadat had been assassinated. Mubarak declared on his inauguration that he would continue the political line of Sadat, which had been one of reconciliation with the West, and peace with Israel inside internationally recognized borders.
Mubarak instituted a vigorous economic recovery program; remained committed to the peace treaty with Israel (signed by Sadat in 1979); mended relations with other Arab states; and initiated a policy he called “positive neutrality” toward the great powers. He was re-elected when his National Democratic Party won the October 1987 elections and was thus able to nominate him as the sole candidate for president. With serious economic problems and rising Islamic fundamentalist opposition at home, Mubarak continued to seek an end to the stalemate that had developed between Israel and Arab nations.
Mubarak supported the 1990 United Nations sanctions against Iraq when that country invaded Kuwait, orchestrated Arab League opposition to the invasion, committed about 38,500 troops to the anti-Iraq coalition in the Persian Gulf War (1991), and supported postwar efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East. Re-elected in 1993, Mubarak cracked down on Muslim fundamentalists.
Mubarak survived an assassination attempt unharmed in June 1995 in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Adaba. Five of the assailants were killed during or after the ambush and three escaped to Sudan, which is widely believed to have sponsored the attack.
In November 1995, just before parliamentary elections, Mubarak’s government accused the Muslim Brotherhood of helping violent Islamic groups. Many of the Muslim Brotherhood’s members were arrested, and several who planned to run in the elections or monitor them were tried and sentenced to prison. Critics accused the government of trying to eliminate even peaceful opponents. In the elections that followed, Mubarak’s National Democratic Party won an overwhelming victory. Mubarak was elected to a fourth six year term in 1999.
During his tenure as President, Mubarak survived six assassination attempts. In June 1995 there was an alleged assassination attempt involving noxious gases and Egyptian Islamic Jihad while he was in Ethiopia for a conference of the Organization of African Unity. Upon return Mubarak is said to have authorized bombings on Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya which by 1999 saw 20,000 persons placed in detention related to the revolutionary Islamic organizations. Another assassination attempt occurred in 1999 when he "was slightly wounded after being attacked by a knife-wielding assailant".
President Mubarak spoke out against the 2003 war on Iraq, arguing that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be resolved first. He also claimed that the war would cause "100 Bin Ladens." President Mubarak did not support an immediate United States pull out from Iraq as he believed it would lead to probable chaos.
In July 2004, Mubarak accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Atef Ebeid and most of the cabinet. He then appointed Ahmed Nazif as the new Prime Minister. The new cabinet was generally viewed with optimism. The new cabinet headed by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif was somewhat successful in overcoming the grim economic situation. The Egyptian stock market came in first place out of all emerging markets in terms of percentage increase for the fiscal year 2004/2005. However, unemployment still persisted and Mubarak came under criticism for favoring big business and privatization as opposed to workers' rights. All this was a consequence of the wide use of privatization policy, by selling shares in most public sector companies, but it is widely believed that this reserve of previously nationalized capitals would end, leaving Nazif's government broke.
President Mubarak was re-elected by majority votes in a referendum for successive terms on four occasions: in 1987, 1993, 1999, and 2005. The results of the referendums are of questionable validity. No one could run against the President due to a restriction in the Egyptian constitution in which the People's Assembly played the main role in electing the President of the Republic.
After increased domestic and international pressure for democratic reform in Egypt, Mubarak asked the largely rubber stamp parliament on February 26, 2005 to amend the constitution to allow multi-candidate presidential elections by September 2005. Previously, Mubarak secured his position by having himself nominated by parliament, then confirmed without opposition in a referendum.
The September 2005 ballot was therefore a multiple candidate election rather than a referendum, but the electoral institutions, and security apparatus remained under the control of the President. The official state media, including the three government newspapers and state television also expressed views identical to the official line taken by Mubarak. After 2005, however, there developed a steady growth in independent news outlets, especially independent newspapers which occasionally criticized the President and his family severely. Satellite channels beaming from Egypt such as the Orbit Satellite Television and Radio Network for example, also exhibited relative openness as exhibited in their flagship program Al Qahira Al Yawm.
On July 28, 2005, Mubarak announced his candidacy, as he had been widely expected to do. The election which was scheduled for September 7, 2005 involved mass rigging activities, according to civil organizations that observed the elections. Reports have shown that Mubarak's party used government vehicles to take public employees to vote for him. Votes were bought for Mubarak in poor suburbs and rural areas. It was also reported that thousands of illegal votes were allowed for Mubarak from citizens who were not registered to vote. On September 8, 2005, Dr. Ayman Nour, a dissident and candidate for the Al-Ghad party - the Tomorrow party-- contested the election results, and demanded a repeat of the election.
In a move widely seen as political persecution, Nour was convicted of forgery and sentenced to five years at hard labor on December 24, 2005.
A dramatic drop in support for Mubarak occurred with the news that his son Alaa was favored in government tenders and privatization. With both of his sons directly and indirectly owning shares in a large number of companies and minor projects, Mubarak's corruption was leading a series of corruption cases among his cabinet of minor governmental employees.
While in office, political corruption in the Mubarak administration's Ministry of Interior rose dramatically, due to the increased power over the institutional system that was necessary to secure the prolonged presidency. Such corruption led to the frequent imprisonment of political figures and young activists without trials, illegal undocumented hidden detention facilities, and rejecting universities, mosques, newspapers staff members based on political inclination. On a personnel level, each individual officer could and would violate citizens' privacy in his area, using unconditioned arrests, common torture and abuse of power, depending on simply brute force, rather than law, to enforce order in the officer's designated area.
The rise to power of powerful business men in the NDP in the federal government and People's Assembly led to massive waves of anger during the years of Ahmed Nazif's government. As a result, frequent laws and bills were passed, with undergiant monopolists (such as Ahmed Ezz's) influence serving personal and corporational financial interests rather than the public's.
In January 2011 thousands of protesters—angered by repression, corruption, and poverty in Egypt—took to the streets, calling for Mubārak to step down as president. Those demonstrations took place shortly after a popular uprising in Tunisia, known as the Jasmine Revolution, forced Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali from power. Mubārak made no public appearances until January 28—the fourth day of clashes between protesters and police—when he gave a speech on Egyptian state television indicating that he intended to remain in office. In the speech he acknowledged the protesters’ demand for political change by announcing that he would dissolve his cabinet and implement new social and economic reforms. Those concessions, however, were dismissed by protesters as a ploy to remain in power and did little to calm the unrest. The following day Mubārak appointed a vice president for the first time in his presidency, choosing Omar Suleiman, the director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service. On February 1, under pressure from continued protests, Mubārak appeared on Egyptian state television and announced that he would not stand in the presidential election scheduled for September 2011.
Under continued pressure to step down immediately, Mubārak made another televised speech on February 10. Although it was widely expected that he would use the address to announce his immediate resignation, he reiterated that he would stay in office until the end of his term, delegating some of his powers to Suleiman. Mubārak promised to institute electoral reforms and vowed to lift Egypt’s emergency law, in place since 1981, when the security situation in Egypt became sufficiently stable.
On February 11, Mubārak left Cairo for Sharm el-Sheikh, a resort town on the Sinai Peninsula where he maintained a residence. Hours later Suleiman appeared on Egyptian television to announce that Mubārak had stepped down as president, leaving the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, a group of senior military officers, to govern the country. Upon learning of Mubārak’s resignation, crowds at Tahrir Square and other protest sites erupted in celebration.
Following Mubārak’s departure, the Egyptian government began to investigate allegations of corruption and abuse of power within the Mubārak regime, questioning and arresting several former officials and business leaders with close ties to Mubārak. Calls for the investigation to focus on Mubārak himself intensified, fueled by reports that the Mubārak family had amassed a fortune worth billions of dollars in overseas accounts. On April 10, the public prosecutor announced that Mubārak and his sons, Alaa and Gamal, would be questioned by investigators. Following the announcement, Mubārak made his first public statements since stepping down as president, denying the accusations of corruption. On April 12, while waiting to be questioned, Mubārak was hospitalized after reportedly suffering a heart attack. Mubārak was held in a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh after an official medical evaluation concluded that his health was too fragile for him to be transferred to prison in Cairo. In May, the Egyptian state media reported that his condition had stabilized, although he needed to be treated for depression.
On May 24, the public prosecutor announced that Mubārak, Alaa, and Gamal would stand trial for ordering the killing of protesters as well as for corruption and abuse of power. On August 3, Mubārak appeared in public for the first time since stepping down, as his trial commenced in Cairo amid heavy security. Although Mubārak, reportedly suffering from poor health, was wheeled into court in a hospital bed, he appeared alert during the hearing, denying all charges against him.
Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak see Mubarak, Hosni
Muhammad Hasni Sayyid Mubarak see Mubarak, Hosni
Hosni Mubarak see Mubarak, Hosni
Husni Mubarak see Mubarak, Hosni
Mubarak, Muhammad Hasni Sayyid see Mubarak, Hosni
Mubarak, Muhammad Hosni Sayyid see Mubarak, Hosni
Mubarak, Hosni (Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak) (Muḥammad Ḥasnī Sayyid Mubārak) (Husnī Mubārak) (b. May 4, 1928). President of Egypt (1981-2011). Mubarak became president in 1981. Mubarak was born in Kafr-al Meselha, the son of an inspector of the Ministry of Justice. Mubarak was educated at Egypt’s national Military Academy and Air Force Academy and at the Frunze General Staff Academy in Moscow in the Soviet Union.
Mubarak joined the air force in 1950, and became air force chief of staff in 1969, and commander in chief in 1972. He had several military positions under President Sadat, such as deputy minister of war, and was one of Sadat’s closest advisors.
In 1975, Mubarak was appointed vice president. Mubarak was elected president on October 13, 1981, one week after Sadat had been assassinated. Mubarak declared on his inauguration that he would continue the political line of Sadat, which had been one of reconciliation with the West, and peace with Israel inside internationally recognized borders.
Mubarak instituted a vigorous economic recovery program; remained committed to the peace treaty with Israel (signed by Sadat in 1979); mended relations with other Arab states; and initiated a policy he called “positive neutrality” toward the great powers. He was re-elected when his National Democratic Party won the October 1987 elections and was thus able to nominate him as the sole candidate for president. With serious economic problems and rising Islamic fundamentalist opposition at home, Mubarak continued to seek an end to the stalemate that had developed between Israel and Arab nations.
Mubarak supported the 1990 United Nations sanctions against Iraq when that country invaded Kuwait, orchestrated Arab League opposition to the invasion, committed about 38,500 troops to the anti-Iraq coalition in the Persian Gulf War (1991), and supported postwar efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East. Re-elected in 1993, Mubarak cracked down on Muslim fundamentalists.
Mubarak survived an assassination attempt unharmed in June 1995 in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Adaba. Five of the assailants were killed during or after the ambush and three escaped to Sudan, which is widely believed to have sponsored the attack.
In November 1995, just before parliamentary elections, Mubarak’s government accused the Muslim Brotherhood of helping violent Islamic groups. Many of the Muslim Brotherhood’s members were arrested, and several who planned to run in the elections or monitor them were tried and sentenced to prison. Critics accused the government of trying to eliminate even peaceful opponents. In the elections that followed, Mubarak’s National Democratic Party won an overwhelming victory. Mubarak was elected to a fourth six year term in 1999.
During his tenure as President, Mubarak survived six assassination attempts. In June 1995 there was an alleged assassination attempt involving noxious gases and Egyptian Islamic Jihad while he was in Ethiopia for a conference of the Organization of African Unity. Upon return Mubarak is said to have authorized bombings on Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya which by 1999 saw 20,000 persons placed in detention related to the revolutionary Islamic organizations. Another assassination attempt occurred in 1999 when he "was slightly wounded after being attacked by a knife-wielding assailant".
President Mubarak spoke out against the 2003 war on Iraq, arguing that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be resolved first. He also claimed that the war would cause "100 Bin Ladens." President Mubarak did not support an immediate United States pull out from Iraq as he believed it would lead to probable chaos.
In July 2004, Mubarak accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Atef Ebeid and most of the cabinet. He then appointed Ahmed Nazif as the new Prime Minister. The new cabinet was generally viewed with optimism. The new cabinet headed by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif was somewhat successful in overcoming the grim economic situation. The Egyptian stock market came in first place out of all emerging markets in terms of percentage increase for the fiscal year 2004/2005. However, unemployment still persisted and Mubarak came under criticism for favoring big business and privatization as opposed to workers' rights. All this was a consequence of the wide use of privatization policy, by selling shares in most public sector companies, but it is widely believed that this reserve of previously nationalized capitals would end, leaving Nazif's government broke.
President Mubarak was re-elected by majority votes in a referendum for successive terms on four occasions: in 1987, 1993, 1999, and 2005. The results of the referendums are of questionable validity. No one could run against the President due to a restriction in the Egyptian constitution in which the People's Assembly played the main role in electing the President of the Republic.
After increased domestic and international pressure for democratic reform in Egypt, Mubarak asked the largely rubber stamp parliament on February 26, 2005 to amend the constitution to allow multi-candidate presidential elections by September 2005. Previously, Mubarak secured his position by having himself nominated by parliament, then confirmed without opposition in a referendum.
The September 2005 ballot was therefore a multiple candidate election rather than a referendum, but the electoral institutions, and security apparatus remained under the control of the President. The official state media, including the three government newspapers and state television also expressed views identical to the official line taken by Mubarak. After 2005, however, there developed a steady growth in independent news outlets, especially independent newspapers which occasionally criticized the President and his family severely. Satellite channels beaming from Egypt such as the Orbit Satellite Television and Radio Network for example, also exhibited relative openness as exhibited in their flagship program Al Qahira Al Yawm.
On July 28, 2005, Mubarak announced his candidacy, as he had been widely expected to do. The election which was scheduled for September 7, 2005 involved mass rigging activities, according to civil organizations that observed the elections. Reports have shown that Mubarak's party used government vehicles to take public employees to vote for him. Votes were bought for Mubarak in poor suburbs and rural areas. It was also reported that thousands of illegal votes were allowed for Mubarak from citizens who were not registered to vote. On September 8, 2005, Dr. Ayman Nour, a dissident and candidate for the Al-Ghad party - the Tomorrow party-- contested the election results, and demanded a repeat of the election.
In a move widely seen as political persecution, Nour was convicted of forgery and sentenced to five years at hard labor on December 24, 2005.
A dramatic drop in support for Mubarak occurred with the news that his son Alaa was favored in government tenders and privatization. With both of his sons directly and indirectly owning shares in a large number of companies and minor projects, Mubarak's corruption was leading a series of corruption cases among his cabinet of minor governmental employees.
While in office, political corruption in the Mubarak administration's Ministry of Interior rose dramatically, due to the increased power over the institutional system that was necessary to secure the prolonged presidency. Such corruption led to the frequent imprisonment of political figures and young activists without trials, illegal undocumented hidden detention facilities, and rejecting universities, mosques, newspapers staff members based on political inclination. On a personnel level, each individual officer could and would violate citizens' privacy in his area, using unconditioned arrests, common torture and abuse of power, depending on simply brute force, rather than law, to enforce order in the officer's designated area.
The rise to power of powerful business men in the NDP in the federal government and People's Assembly led to massive waves of anger during the years of Ahmed Nazif's government. As a result, frequent laws and bills were passed, with undergiant monopolists (such as Ahmed Ezz's) influence serving personal and corporational financial interests rather than the public's.
In January 2011 thousands of protesters—angered by repression, corruption, and poverty in Egypt—took to the streets, calling for Mubārak to step down as president. Those demonstrations took place shortly after a popular uprising in Tunisia, known as the Jasmine Revolution, forced Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali from power. Mubārak made no public appearances until January 28—the fourth day of clashes between protesters and police—when he gave a speech on Egyptian state television indicating that he intended to remain in office. In the speech he acknowledged the protesters’ demand for political change by announcing that he would dissolve his cabinet and implement new social and economic reforms. Those concessions, however, were dismissed by protesters as a ploy to remain in power and did little to calm the unrest. The following day Mubārak appointed a vice president for the first time in his presidency, choosing Omar Suleiman, the director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service. On February 1, under pressure from continued protests, Mubārak appeared on Egyptian state television and announced that he would not stand in the presidential election scheduled for September 2011.
Under continued pressure to step down immediately, Mubārak made another televised speech on February 10. Although it was widely expected that he would use the address to announce his immediate resignation, he reiterated that he would stay in office until the end of his term, delegating some of his powers to Suleiman. Mubārak promised to institute electoral reforms and vowed to lift Egypt’s emergency law, in place since 1981, when the security situation in Egypt became sufficiently stable.
On February 11, Mubārak left Cairo for Sharm el-Sheikh, a resort town on the Sinai Peninsula where he maintained a residence. Hours later Suleiman appeared on Egyptian television to announce that Mubārak had stepped down as president, leaving the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, a group of senior military officers, to govern the country. Upon learning of Mubārak’s resignation, crowds at Tahrir Square and other protest sites erupted in celebration.
Following Mubārak’s departure, the Egyptian government began to investigate allegations of corruption and abuse of power within the Mubārak regime, questioning and arresting several former officials and business leaders with close ties to Mubārak. Calls for the investigation to focus on Mubārak himself intensified, fueled by reports that the Mubārak family had amassed a fortune worth billions of dollars in overseas accounts. On April 10, the public prosecutor announced that Mubārak and his sons, Alaa and Gamal, would be questioned by investigators. Following the announcement, Mubārak made his first public statements since stepping down as president, denying the accusations of corruption. On April 12, while waiting to be questioned, Mubārak was hospitalized after reportedly suffering a heart attack. Mubārak was held in a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh after an official medical evaluation concluded that his health was too fragile for him to be transferred to prison in Cairo. In May, the Egyptian state media reported that his condition had stabilized, although he needed to be treated for depression.
On May 24, the public prosecutor announced that Mubārak, Alaa, and Gamal would stand trial for ordering the killing of protesters as well as for corruption and abuse of power. On August 3, Mubārak appeared in public for the first time since stepping down, as his trial commenced in Cairo amid heavy security. Although Mubārak, reportedly suffering from poor health, was wheeled into court in a hospital bed, he appeared alert during the hearing, denying all charges against him.
Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak see Mubarak, Hosni
Muhammad Hasni Sayyid Mubarak see Mubarak, Hosni
Hosni Mubarak see Mubarak, Hosni
Husni Mubarak see Mubarak, Hosni
Mubarak, Muhammad Hasni Sayyid see Mubarak, Hosni
Mubarak, Muhammad Hosni Sayyid see Mubarak, Hosni
Mubarrad, Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Mubarrad, Abu’l-‘Abbas al- (Abu’l-‘Abbas al-Mubarrad) (Abu Al-'Abbas Muhammad ibn Yazid) (Mobarrad) (Abu Al-'Abbas Muhammad Ibn Yazid) (March 25, 826, Basra - October, 898, Baghdad). Philologist from Basra. The rivalries between him and Tha‘lab led to the formation of the two famous schools of philologists at Kufa and Basra. His most famous work deals with an extensive range of themes concerning belles-lettres.
Mubarrad was an Arabian grammarian. After studying grammar in that city, he was called to the court of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil at Samarra in 860. When the caliph was killed in 861, he went to Baghdad, remaining there most of his life as a teacher.
Al-Mubarrad became the leader of the Basran grammarians against the Kufan school. His judgment, however, was independent, as is shown by his attack on some points in the grammar of Sibawayh, the greatest writer of his own school. He died at Baghdad in 898.
His main work is the grammatical one known as the Al-Kamil ("The Perfect One"). Al-Mubarrad's writings are considered to be the first source recounting the story that Shahrbanu or Shahr Banu — eldest daughter of Yazdegerd III, the last Emperor of the Sassanid dynasty of Persia/Iran — had married Hussain ibn Ali, the Prophet Muhammad's grandson and the third Shia Imam and that she gave birth to Ali Zayn al Abidin (the fourth Shia Imam). This makes all later Shia Imams descendants of the Sassanid dynasty as well as of Islam's founder, a significant point considering that Iran has by far the largest number of Shias.
Abu’l-‘Abbas al-Mubarrad see Mubarrad, Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Abu Al-'Abbas Muhammad ibn Yazid
see Mubarrad, Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Mobarrad see Mubarrad, Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Abu Al-'Abbas Muhammad Ibn Yazid see Mubarrad, Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Mubarrad, Abu’l-‘Abbas al- (Abu’l-‘Abbas al-Mubarrad) (Abu Al-'Abbas Muhammad ibn Yazid) (Mobarrad) (Abu Al-'Abbas Muhammad Ibn Yazid) (March 25, 826, Basra - October, 898, Baghdad). Philologist from Basra. The rivalries between him and Tha‘lab led to the formation of the two famous schools of philologists at Kufa and Basra. His most famous work deals with an extensive range of themes concerning belles-lettres.
Mubarrad was an Arabian grammarian. After studying grammar in that city, he was called to the court of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil at Samarra in 860. When the caliph was killed in 861, he went to Baghdad, remaining there most of his life as a teacher.
Al-Mubarrad became the leader of the Basran grammarians against the Kufan school. His judgment, however, was independent, as is shown by his attack on some points in the grammar of Sibawayh, the greatest writer of his own school. He died at Baghdad in 898.
His main work is the grammatical one known as the Al-Kamil ("The Perfect One"). Al-Mubarrad's writings are considered to be the first source recounting the story that Shahrbanu or Shahr Banu — eldest daughter of Yazdegerd III, the last Emperor of the Sassanid dynasty of Persia/Iran — had married Hussain ibn Ali, the Prophet Muhammad's grandson and the third Shia Imam and that she gave birth to Ali Zayn al Abidin (the fourth Shia Imam). This makes all later Shia Imams descendants of the Sassanid dynasty as well as of Islam's founder, a significant point considering that Iran has by far the largest number of Shias.
Abu’l-‘Abbas al-Mubarrad see Mubarrad, Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Abu Al-'Abbas Muhammad ibn Yazid
see Mubarrad, Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Mobarrad see Mubarrad, Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Abu Al-'Abbas Muhammad Ibn Yazid see Mubarrad, Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Mubashshir ibn Fatik, al-
Mubashshir ibn Fatik, al-. Egyptian historian and savant of the eleventh century. His surviving work, called Choice wise sayings and fine statements, deals with ancient, almost exclusively Greek, sages. It enjoyed great popularity in the Muslim world. About 1250, it was translated into Spanish.
Mubashshir ibn Fatik, al-. Egyptian historian and savant of the eleventh century. His surviving work, called Choice wise sayings and fine statements, deals with ancient, almost exclusively Greek, sages. It enjoyed great popularity in the Muslim world. About 1250, it was translated into Spanish.
Mudejar
Mudejar. Term to designate the Muslim who, in return for the payment of tribute, continued to live in territories conquered by the Christians.
Mudéjar is the name given to individual Moors or Muslims of Al-Andalus who remained in Christian territory after the Reconquista but were not converted to Christianity. It also denotes a style of Iberian architecture and decoration, particularly of Aragon and Castile, of the 12th to 16th centuries, strongly influenced by Moorish taste and workmanship.
The word Mudéjar is a Medieval Spanish corruption of the Arabic word Mudajjan, meaning "domesticated", in a reference to the Muslims who submitted to the rule of the Christian kings.
The Treaty of Granada (1491) protected religious and cultural freedoms for Muslims and Jews in the imminent transition from the Emirate of Granada to a Province of Castile. After the fall in the Battle of Granada in January of 1492, Mudéjars, unlike the Jews' Alhambra Decree (1492) expulsion, kept the protected religious status along with Catholic converso efforts. However, in the mid-16th century, they were forced to convert to Christianity. From that time, because of suspicions that they were not truly converted, or crypto-Muslims, they were known as Moriscos. In 1610 those who refused to convert to Christianity were expelled. The distinctive Mudéjar style is still evident in regional architecture, as well as in the music, art, and crafts.
Mudejar. Term to designate the Muslim who, in return for the payment of tribute, continued to live in territories conquered by the Christians.
Mudéjar is the name given to individual Moors or Muslims of Al-Andalus who remained in Christian territory after the Reconquista but were not converted to Christianity. It also denotes a style of Iberian architecture and decoration, particularly of Aragon and Castile, of the 12th to 16th centuries, strongly influenced by Moorish taste and workmanship.
The word Mudéjar is a Medieval Spanish corruption of the Arabic word Mudajjan, meaning "domesticated", in a reference to the Muslims who submitted to the rule of the Christian kings.
The Treaty of Granada (1491) protected religious and cultural freedoms for Muslims and Jews in the imminent transition from the Emirate of Granada to a Province of Castile. After the fall in the Battle of Granada in January of 1492, Mudéjars, unlike the Jews' Alhambra Decree (1492) expulsion, kept the protected religious status along with Catholic converso efforts. However, in the mid-16th century, they were forced to convert to Christianity. From that time, because of suspicions that they were not truly converted, or crypto-Muslims, they were known as Moriscos. In 1610 those who refused to convert to Christianity were expelled. The distinctive Mudéjar style is still evident in regional architecture, as well as in the music, art, and crafts.
Mueyyed-zade
Mueyyed-zade (1456-1516). Ottoman theologian and legist. He encouraged rising young poets, historians and jurists and owned a private library of over 7,000 volumes.
Mueyyed-zade (1456-1516). Ottoman theologian and legist. He encouraged rising young poets, historians and jurists and owned a private library of over 7,000 volumes.
muezzin
muezzin (mu’adhdhin) (muzim). Person who calls other Muslims to communal worship, usually from an elevated part of a mosque (e.g., the balcony of a minaret). The muezzin issues his call -- his adhan -- to public worship on Friday and to the five daily prayers. He belongs to the personnel of the mosque.
Muezzin is the person calling out for people to come to the mosque to perform salat, the five daily prayer of Islam. Traditionally, the muezzin calls out the adhan from the minaret, but in more and more mosques there have been put up loudspeakers.
The institution of muezzin belongs to the customs of the prophet Muhammad’s own time. The first muezzin was Bilal, who walked the streets to call the believers to come to prayer.
Large parts of the custom was undecided by the death of Muhammad. Which way one should choose for the calling, where it should be performed. Trumpets, flags and lamps were all elements doing the adhan in the place of the muezzin. Had the development wanted things to go differently, these could all succeed in replacing him if the debates had ended differently.
The activities of the muezzin eventually developed into rituals by themselves. The uttering of the adhan could be heard all over the cities at certain times through the day.
The first muezzins were using the roof of the mosque, or the adjacent streets, to call for people’s attention. It is believed that the institution of the muezzin -- the public crier -- existed in pre-Islamic Arab culture.
The acts of the muezzin is also an art form, reflected in melodious chanting of the adhan.
mu'adhdhin see muezzin
muzim see muezzin
muezzin (mu’adhdhin) (muzim). Person who calls other Muslims to communal worship, usually from an elevated part of a mosque (e.g., the balcony of a minaret). The muezzin issues his call -- his adhan -- to public worship on Friday and to the five daily prayers. He belongs to the personnel of the mosque.
Muezzin is the person calling out for people to come to the mosque to perform salat, the five daily prayer of Islam. Traditionally, the muezzin calls out the adhan from the minaret, but in more and more mosques there have been put up loudspeakers.
The institution of muezzin belongs to the customs of the prophet Muhammad’s own time. The first muezzin was Bilal, who walked the streets to call the believers to come to prayer.
Large parts of the custom was undecided by the death of Muhammad. Which way one should choose for the calling, where it should be performed. Trumpets, flags and lamps were all elements doing the adhan in the place of the muezzin. Had the development wanted things to go differently, these could all succeed in replacing him if the debates had ended differently.
The activities of the muezzin eventually developed into rituals by themselves. The uttering of the adhan could be heard all over the cities at certain times through the day.
The first muezzins were using the roof of the mosque, or the adjacent streets, to call for people’s attention. It is believed that the institution of the muezzin -- the public crier -- existed in pre-Islamic Arab culture.
The acts of the muezzin is also an art form, reflected in melodious chanting of the adhan.
mu'adhdhin see muezzin
muzim see muezzin
Mufaddal al-Dabbi, al-
Mufaddal al-Dabbi, al- (d. c. 781). Arabic philologist of the Kufan school. His principal work is an anthology of early Arabic poems, mainly pre-Islamic, known as the Mufaddaliyyat. Al-Mufaddal compiled them for his pupil, the future Caliph al-Mahdi.
Mufaddal al-Dabbi, al- (d. c. 781). Arabic philologist of the Kufan school. His principal work is an anthology of early Arabic poems, mainly pre-Islamic, known as the Mufaddaliyyat. Al-Mufaddal compiled them for his pupil, the future Caliph al-Mahdi.
Mufaddal ibn Abi’l-Fada’il, al-
Mufaddal ibn Abi’l-Fada’il, al- (Moufazzal ibn Abi l-Fazil). Coptic historian of the fourteenth century. His only known work is an account of the Mameluke period from 1260 to 1348.
Al-Mufaddal was a 14th century Egyptian historian. He was a Coptic Christian. Al-Mufaddal wrote a book about the history of the Bahriyya Mamelukes, entitled al-Nahdj al-sadîd wa-l-durr al-farîd fimâ ba'd Ta'rîkh Ibn al'Amîd, covering the period from 1260 to 1340. He finished his work in 1358. Al-Mufaddal gives precise descriptions of the history of Egypt and Syria, especially the Mongol occupation of Syria. He noted down the Damascus declaration made by the Mongols, as well as the content of the letters exchanged between Ghazan and al-Nâsir.
Moufazzal ibn Abi l-Fazil see Mufaddal ibn Abi’l-Fada’il, al-
Mufaddal ibn Abi’l-Fada’il, al- (Moufazzal ibn Abi l-Fazil). Coptic historian of the fourteenth century. His only known work is an account of the Mameluke period from 1260 to 1348.
Al-Mufaddal was a 14th century Egyptian historian. He was a Coptic Christian. Al-Mufaddal wrote a book about the history of the Bahriyya Mamelukes, entitled al-Nahdj al-sadîd wa-l-durr al-farîd fimâ ba'd Ta'rîkh Ibn al'Amîd, covering the period from 1260 to 1340. He finished his work in 1358. Al-Mufaddal gives precise descriptions of the history of Egypt and Syria, especially the Mongol occupation of Syria. He noted down the Damascus declaration made by the Mongols, as well as the content of the letters exchanged between Ghazan and al-Nâsir.
Moufazzal ibn Abi l-Fazil see Mufaddal ibn Abi’l-Fada’il, al-
Mufid, Shaykh Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Mufid, Shaykh Abu ‘Abd Allah al- (Shaykh Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Mufid) (Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Nu'man al-'Ukbari al-Baghdadi) (al-Shaykh al-Mufid) (Ibn al-Mu'allim) (948-1032). Imami Shi‘a theologian and jurist. He was the spokesman of the Twelver Shi‘a, and wrote refutations of treatises and views of the Mu‘tazili and Sunni traditionalist theologians.
Al-Shaykh Al-Mufid was born in 'Ukbara, a small town to the north of Baghdad and later migrated together with his father to Baghdad, where the Shiite Buwayhids were ruling. In Shi'ite tradition, he studied with the famed traditionist al-Shaykh al-Saduq Ibn Babawayh al-Qummi. Prominent students of his included Sharif al-Murtaza, al-Shaykh al-Tusi, commonly known as the leader of the Shi'a and al-Karajaki. His career coincided with that of the famous Mu'tazili theologian and leader of the Bahshamiyya school, 'Abd al-Jabbar al-Asadabadi al-Hamadhani and with the disputations and intra-sectarian conflicts in Baghdad. He was thus often attacked and his library and school was destroyed. But he remained a faithful and significant intellectual defender of Twelver Shi'ism and was respected by friends and opponents.
Al-Mufid is quite often accused of incorporating the modes of theological reasoning common in the Baghdad school of the Mu'tazila as exemplified by his teacher Abu'l-Qasim al-Ka'bi al-Balkhi into Twelver Shi'ite theology. This is however on the basis of studies relying on a Sunni interpretation of Shi'ite theological history. The Shi'ite interpretation is that the Mu'tazila borrowed from the Shi'ah long before al-Mufid and the Shi'ah doctrine was already in place at the time al-Mufid.
Al-Mufid died on the eve of Friday, 3rd of Ramadan, 1032. His student Sayyid al-Murtada led his funeral prayer (Salat-e-Mayyit), in the presence of nearly eighty thousand people, a crowd never seen before in any funeral in Baghdad..
Al-Mufid remained buried in his own house for two years, and then his body was transferred to Al Kadhimiya Mosque where it was interred near his mentor, Ja'far ibn Qawlayh's grave facing the feet of Imam Muhammad at-Taqi. His grave is still visited by those who visit the holy shrines in Kadhimayn.
The books of al-Mufid include:
* Al-Amali
* Al-Irshad
* Awa'il al-Maqalat
* Ahkam al-Nisa'
* Khulasat al-Iyjaz
* Jawabat Ahl al-Mawsul
* Risalat al-Mut`ah
* Aqsam al-Mawla
* Risalah fi al-Mahr
* Iman Abi Talib
* Al-Ikhtisas
* Al-Ifsah fi al-Imamah Amir al-Mu'minin
* Al-Ishraf
* Tashih I`tiqadat al-Imamiyah
* Tafdhil Amir al-Mu'minin
* Risalah fi Ma`na al-Mawla
* Al-Jamal
* Al-Masa'il al-Sarawiyah
* Al-Masa'il al-Saghaniyah
* Al-Masa'il al-Tusiyah
* Al-Masa'il al-Jarudiyah
* Al-Masa'il al-`Ukbariyah
* Al-Nukat al-I`tiqadiyah
* Al-Masa'il al-`Ashr fi al-Ghaybah
* Dhaba'ih Ahl al-Kitab
* Al-Mas'hu ala al-Rijlayn
* Al-Muqni`yah
* Al-I`lam bima ittafaqat alayhi al-Imamiyah min al-Ahkam
* Al-Tadhkirah bil Usul al-Fiqh
* Masar al-Shi`ah
* Al-Nukat fi al-Muqadimat al-Usul
Shaykh Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Mufid see Mufid, Shaykh Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Nu'man al-'Ukbari al-Baghdadi see Mufid, Shaykh Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
al-Shaykh al-Mufid see Mufid, Shaykh Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Ibn al-Mu'allim see Mufid, Shaykh Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Mufid, Shaykh Abu ‘Abd Allah al- (Shaykh Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Mufid) (Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Nu'man al-'Ukbari al-Baghdadi) (al-Shaykh al-Mufid) (Ibn al-Mu'allim) (948-1032). Imami Shi‘a theologian and jurist. He was the spokesman of the Twelver Shi‘a, and wrote refutations of treatises and views of the Mu‘tazili and Sunni traditionalist theologians.
Al-Shaykh Al-Mufid was born in 'Ukbara, a small town to the north of Baghdad and later migrated together with his father to Baghdad, where the Shiite Buwayhids were ruling. In Shi'ite tradition, he studied with the famed traditionist al-Shaykh al-Saduq Ibn Babawayh al-Qummi. Prominent students of his included Sharif al-Murtaza, al-Shaykh al-Tusi, commonly known as the leader of the Shi'a and al-Karajaki. His career coincided with that of the famous Mu'tazili theologian and leader of the Bahshamiyya school, 'Abd al-Jabbar al-Asadabadi al-Hamadhani and with the disputations and intra-sectarian conflicts in Baghdad. He was thus often attacked and his library and school was destroyed. But he remained a faithful and significant intellectual defender of Twelver Shi'ism and was respected by friends and opponents.
Al-Mufid is quite often accused of incorporating the modes of theological reasoning common in the Baghdad school of the Mu'tazila as exemplified by his teacher Abu'l-Qasim al-Ka'bi al-Balkhi into Twelver Shi'ite theology. This is however on the basis of studies relying on a Sunni interpretation of Shi'ite theological history. The Shi'ite interpretation is that the Mu'tazila borrowed from the Shi'ah long before al-Mufid and the Shi'ah doctrine was already in place at the time al-Mufid.
Al-Mufid died on the eve of Friday, 3rd of Ramadan, 1032. His student Sayyid al-Murtada led his funeral prayer (Salat-e-Mayyit), in the presence of nearly eighty thousand people, a crowd never seen before in any funeral in Baghdad..
Al-Mufid remained buried in his own house for two years, and then his body was transferred to Al Kadhimiya Mosque where it was interred near his mentor, Ja'far ibn Qawlayh's grave facing the feet of Imam Muhammad at-Taqi. His grave is still visited by those who visit the holy shrines in Kadhimayn.
The books of al-Mufid include:
* Al-Amali
* Al-Irshad
* Awa'il al-Maqalat
* Ahkam al-Nisa'
* Khulasat al-Iyjaz
* Jawabat Ahl al-Mawsul
* Risalat al-Mut`ah
* Aqsam al-Mawla
* Risalah fi al-Mahr
* Iman Abi Talib
* Al-Ikhtisas
* Al-Ifsah fi al-Imamah Amir al-Mu'minin
* Al-Ishraf
* Tashih I`tiqadat al-Imamiyah
* Tafdhil Amir al-Mu'minin
* Risalah fi Ma`na al-Mawla
* Al-Jamal
* Al-Masa'il al-Sarawiyah
* Al-Masa'il al-Saghaniyah
* Al-Masa'il al-Tusiyah
* Al-Masa'il al-Jarudiyah
* Al-Masa'il al-`Ukbariyah
* Al-Nukat al-I`tiqadiyah
* Al-Masa'il al-`Ashr fi al-Ghaybah
* Dhaba'ih Ahl al-Kitab
* Al-Mas'hu ala al-Rijlayn
* Al-Muqni`yah
* Al-I`lam bima ittafaqat alayhi al-Imamiyah min al-Ahkam
* Al-Tadhkirah bil Usul al-Fiqh
* Masar al-Shi`ah
* Al-Nukat fi al-Muqadimat al-Usul
Shaykh Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Mufid see Mufid, Shaykh Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Nu'man al-'Ukbari al-Baghdadi see Mufid, Shaykh Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
al-Shaykh al-Mufid see Mufid, Shaykh Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Ibn al-Mu'allim see Mufid, Shaykh Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Mufti
Mufti (Muftu). Arabic term which refers to an expert in shari‘a -- to a Sunni Muslim legal consultant. The mufti supplies the fatwa -- the authorized legal decisions. Nowadays, a mufti is the leader of the ulama in a Sunni Muslim state.
In Sunni Islam, a mufti is a specialist in religious law -- shari‘a -- whose opinion is sought on interpretations of that law. The mufti issues formal legal opinions on the basis of which a judge may decide a case or an individual may regulate his everyday affairs. The position of the grand mufti among the Sunnis is similar to that of the supreme ayatollah among the Shi‘ites.
Mufti is a religious leader who primarily deals with juridicial questions. The mufti is the only one who can issue a fatwa, which gives him the power of handling cases where there is a doubt among other Muslim learned. The root for fatwa and mufti is the same: “ftw.”
A Muslim jurist capable of giving, when requested, a non-binding opinion known as a fatwa, on a point of Islamic law is termed a mufti. During the formative period of Islam, learned Muslims whose counsel was sought on legal and ethical issues that arose in the community attempted to provide opinions and answers in the litght of their understanding of the Qur’an and in relation to the emerging body of hadith (prophetic traditions). This activity subsequently crystallized to constitute the major Muslim legal schools. In its formal aspect, the position of mufti arose and became institutionalized as a response to the need for legal opinion and advice from scholars knowledgeable in early Islamic history among the various schools of law. In time, however, the mufti came to occupy a mediating position between the qadi, the judge who administered the law, and the faqih or jurisprudent -- that is, between actual courtroom situations where justice was adminstered and places of learning where the theoretical study of legal texts took place. The mufti’s opinions were built on precedent and were incorporated in legal reference manuals such as the well-known Fatwa ‘Alamgiriyah. The mufti also played an important role in the islamization of newly converted regions through education.
Traditionally, a mufti was to be a person of integrity who possessed a thorough knowledge of established texts, traditions, and legal precedents. Although most were private scholars, some were appointed to official positions, notably in Mamluk Egypt and in the Ottoman Empire. In the Twelver Shi‘a tradition an analogous role came to be played by the mujtahid, who maintained continuity within the tradition after the ghaybah (occultation) of the twelfth imam in the ninth century. Under Safavid rule the mujtahid held the office of shaykh al-Islam. The role of such jurist/theologians eventually led to the development of the concept of wilayat al-faqih, the “governance of the jurist.”
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as legal codes of European origin were introduced to the Muslim world, the mufti’s role became limited primarily but not exclusively to the sphere of personal law. But since a mufti often acted as a religious teacher in the local community, people continued to seek his opinions on a wide range of matters dealing with practice of the faith as well as on everyday life. This role has persisted in the many new nation states that emerged after colonial rule. As many of these Muslim countries seek to integrate and institutionalize aspects of Islamic law in national life, new patterns are emerging for the mufti’s role in society. Some have been appointed as muftis of the state; other provide consensus as part of advisory councils of religious scholars or constitutional assemblies of scholars. It is the private role of the mufti, however, that continues to be influential, offering posibilities for further evolution in their creative task as counselors and mediators for tradition in times of change.
Muftu see Mufti
Mufti (Muftu). Arabic term which refers to an expert in shari‘a -- to a Sunni Muslim legal consultant. The mufti supplies the fatwa -- the authorized legal decisions. Nowadays, a mufti is the leader of the ulama in a Sunni Muslim state.
In Sunni Islam, a mufti is a specialist in religious law -- shari‘a -- whose opinion is sought on interpretations of that law. The mufti issues formal legal opinions on the basis of which a judge may decide a case or an individual may regulate his everyday affairs. The position of the grand mufti among the Sunnis is similar to that of the supreme ayatollah among the Shi‘ites.
Mufti is a religious leader who primarily deals with juridicial questions. The mufti is the only one who can issue a fatwa, which gives him the power of handling cases where there is a doubt among other Muslim learned. The root for fatwa and mufti is the same: “ftw.”
A Muslim jurist capable of giving, when requested, a non-binding opinion known as a fatwa, on a point of Islamic law is termed a mufti. During the formative period of Islam, learned Muslims whose counsel was sought on legal and ethical issues that arose in the community attempted to provide opinions and answers in the litght of their understanding of the Qur’an and in relation to the emerging body of hadith (prophetic traditions). This activity subsequently crystallized to constitute the major Muslim legal schools. In its formal aspect, the position of mufti arose and became institutionalized as a response to the need for legal opinion and advice from scholars knowledgeable in early Islamic history among the various schools of law. In time, however, the mufti came to occupy a mediating position between the qadi, the judge who administered the law, and the faqih or jurisprudent -- that is, between actual courtroom situations where justice was adminstered and places of learning where the theoretical study of legal texts took place. The mufti’s opinions were built on precedent and were incorporated in legal reference manuals such as the well-known Fatwa ‘Alamgiriyah. The mufti also played an important role in the islamization of newly converted regions through education.
Traditionally, a mufti was to be a person of integrity who possessed a thorough knowledge of established texts, traditions, and legal precedents. Although most were private scholars, some were appointed to official positions, notably in Mamluk Egypt and in the Ottoman Empire. In the Twelver Shi‘a tradition an analogous role came to be played by the mujtahid, who maintained continuity within the tradition after the ghaybah (occultation) of the twelfth imam in the ninth century. Under Safavid rule the mujtahid held the office of shaykh al-Islam. The role of such jurist/theologians eventually led to the development of the concept of wilayat al-faqih, the “governance of the jurist.”
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as legal codes of European origin were introduced to the Muslim world, the mufti’s role became limited primarily but not exclusively to the sphere of personal law. But since a mufti often acted as a religious teacher in the local community, people continued to seek his opinions on a wide range of matters dealing with practice of the faith as well as on everyday life. This role has persisted in the many new nation states that emerged after colonial rule. As many of these Muslim countries seek to integrate and institutionalize aspects of Islamic law in national life, new patterns are emerging for the mufti’s role in society. Some have been appointed as muftis of the state; other provide consensus as part of advisory councils of religious scholars or constitutional assemblies of scholars. It is the private role of the mufti, however, that continues to be influential, offering posibilities for further evolution in their creative task as counselors and mediators for tradition in times of change.
Muftu see Mufti
Mufti
Mufti. Among Muslim Hausa slaves in Brazil, a judicial assessor in charge of settling community disputes regarding material possessions.
Mufti. Among Muslim Hausa slaves in Brazil, a judicial assessor in charge of settling community disputes regarding material possessions.
No comments:
Post a Comment